


Cupid's Other Arrows

by ProdigySorcerer



Category: Star Trek: Lower Decks (Cartoon)
Genre: Barnes/Levy, F/M, Ransom/Ramsey, help me I'm addicted to writing trailers, mentions of Rutherford/Tendi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:27:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 62,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26780623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProdigySorcerer/pseuds/ProdigySorcerer
Summary: A series that will contain Boimler/Mariner stories, most stories are standalone, they range from slice of life onboard a Star Fleet ship to Holodeck only chapters to AU.Latest chapter: Mirror Match Part I
Relationships: Brad Boimler/Beckett Mariner
Comments: 388
Kudos: 59





	1. The first night is the hardest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Boimler and Mariner spend a night in the brig.

The first night in the brig was always the hardest, I remember even myself a badass space adventurer found it hard.

Boimler pacing around our cell, nearly hyperventilating was better than I expected, which was a stress induced heart attack.

“Oh my god what am I going to do ? I’m in the brig !!! This is going into my permanent record I’ll be unpromotable for sure !!!”

“Yeah, yeah you’ll be this next generation’s Harry Kim.” I mockingly added.

Boimler stopped moving and tried to kill me with his telekinesis, fortunately for me didn’t have such mind powers so all I got was a mean stare.

“Dude relax, regulation 24-09-O subsection c) ... “

“Any accusations or disciplinary action taken by a commanding officer which is proved in hindsight to be acting against Star Fleet’s interests will be null and void ... you think Admiral Von Schrader has gone rogue ?“

“Oh my god yes !! Come on could it be more obvious ? Guy comes aboard while captain Freeman is on a special mission, he’s an admiral there’s a higher than 50% chance that they’re bad news. And then suddenly he gets a `top secret message` that Freeman is MIA and he takes over the ship ?”

“I admit he’s thrown a record number of the crew in the brig for being in command only 3 days, even had to setup makeshift brigs like this ... plus the name.” Brad gave me a small smile it seemed like with the chance of a promotion back on the table his spirit was back in it.

“Lower decks !! Here’s your food.” one of von Schrader’s security henchmen he brought along to the ship raised the temporary forcefield which was keeping us trapped in this small cut off section of the tertiary storage deck.

“Uhhm thanks ... come on lover boy “ I said looking Boimler in the eyes “I want to feed my baby this gruel.”

Brad instantly blushed but to his credit he caught on to what I was trying to do instantly and sat down next to me on the bench in our cell.

The guard rolled his eyes and started a patrol route, but one that he intentionally plotted so that he didn’t come near us more than strictly needed.

“That worked ?” Boimler asked, almost not believing our luck.

“Yeah fortunately most guards aren’t voyeurs, pretending we’re a thing and keeping our voices low is our only option now that the guards are posted here.”

The best we could could come up so that we could whisper to each other without actually making out was that Boimler sat on most of the bench while I took up the corner farthest from the guard.

Also Brad was resting his head in my lap.

“This is an Andorian Chakra massage it will help stimulate your blood-flow.” I said conspicuously loud.

The guard seemed to buy it.

Boimler for some reason also seemed to believe it as well, and was getting way into it.

To be honest I was just playing with Brad’s hair, it's texture soothed my nerves as I moved my fingers through his locks.

Ok and running circles on his forehead to feel his soft skin more than I strictly needed to.

“Ok what’s the plan ?” Brad made the first logical move he did all day and deferred to me for our strategy.

“The admiral can’t keep running the guard shifts with just his retinue every day, tomorrow he’ll have to use crew from the Cerritos ... we’ll get them on our side and bust out ...”

“Aha” Boimler said softly.

“Fight or sneak our way to the captain’s yacht, I know for a fact Freeman augmented it with equipment that can get us a channel to Star Fleet headquarters back on Earth.”

“great” came the blissful reply.

“There is a certain admiral that owes me ... “ for not buying me that XXL Toby The Targ plush despite me winning the spelling bee “ we’ll have a few Galaxy class cruisers here immediately to take back our ship.”

“Yesss” Boimler almost moaned.

To be fair I had sort of went from just playing around to actually massaging his shoulders and neck with a relaxing technique I picked up from the doctor on the Quinto, but moaning in a time like this ?

Getting that annoyingly cute blush on his face ?

Letting his body go fully soft ? Well not all of him ...

* * *

I was trying desperately not to fall asleep of course Mariner had to be good at massages. Of course she had to be !

And did she have to guess I loved having my hair played with ???

My brain kept reminding me that this position allowed us to whisper out our plans without the guard getting suspicious, it was the logical thing to do.

Spock or Tuvok would have approved I’m sure.

My less than stoic nature also approved of the view of Beckket’s bosom from bellow.

Wait why does she seem pissed ?

Why is she lowering herself ?

Before I can realize what is happening, her lips are upon mine.

Is this like the simulations I ran on the holodeck ???

It’s a surprisingly wet kiss, hungry even. Her tongue is darting inviting me out so I eagerly accept.

Then she full on bites my lower lip, she doesn’t stop until I think she tastes blood.

“What The Hell ! Mariner ?” I whisper when she finally lets me go, the guard doesn’t seem to have noticed.

“The captain is missing ... some asshole is keeping the ship trapped when she could need us .., andYou’reHavingAnErrection ?”

I can’t really reply to that, I look away to the wall in shame.

I try to get up and at least run to the other corner of our cell, but Mariner in the guise of a tender embrace has me in a lock .

I think an hour passes and we can talk to each other again, Becket’s a bit more lenient when I repeat the plan proving I was listening after all.

Night finally comes, I whisper I’ll take the floor but she’s having none of it.

Part of it is to keep up the deception, part of it is that the asshole has intentionally messed with the climate of this part of the ship, lowering the temperature to try and keep us all in discomfort, which means the floor is really not a posibility for someone to sleep on

So the bench is a little better than the floor.

A lot better since we have to share the very narrow bench.

Mariner insists she be the big spoon.

This shouldn’t be that weird, ok the incident before aside, both of us are officers and professionals co-workers and ... friends ?

I feel her having seen me buck naked and fully erect during the whole parasite thing with Barbara she knows too much for us to be just work-friends.

She's not saying anything trying to pretend to be asleep, probably rationalizing it as not showing weakness and fooling me into getting at least some sleep this night in order to be prepared for tomorrow's breakout.

“Mariner ...”

“Boims just try and sleep, it's going to be a long road tomorrow and I'll need ... you'll need to be rested. It's up to us to get the ship back and save captain Freeman ... and evenIf ... uh in the other case and it's too late even if the admiral is telling the truth ... “

“He’s not, your mother is too good of an officer, she’s out there and alive!” I try to muster as much resolve and courage as I can muster into my words.

“What do you mean ?”

“Relax, I know ...”

“There’s nothing to know!” she said sharply.

“I haven’t told anyone, please trust me on this ... we’ll make it, we’ll save your mother.”

I think Mariner wants to say something but she can't think of anything what happens is we end up rolling and I'm the big spoon now with her burying her face into my chest.

Becket still doesn't say anything but her breathing is starting to slow down and get back to normal.

“Not a word of this to anyone, especially mom.” she whispers and I can sense some wetness on my chest near where her eyes should be.

* * *

Returning to the Cerritos and finding out my daughter was in the brig was something I was well prepared for, what I didn't expect was the attempted coup by "the admiral", still he was eventually foiled once again validating my trust in the crew and the training I personally imparted unto them.

A particular feeling of pride swelled up in my chest as I read the after action report and saw how many of them resisted the infiltrator from the start, enough of them that the brig had been too small for the large numbers of crew who openly resisted unlawful orders before the general mutiny was finally organized.

Becket was apparently sharing her cell with ensign Boimler, not one that I would have expected to oppose an admiral, he was charged with “assaulting the acting captain with a chemical weapon” Doctor T’Ana helpfully confirmed that he spilled some overheated over-sweetened coffee on the lap of that “man”.

I entered the area where their cell was, Becket always loved the brig so I thought it would be nice to liberate her the last and let her have a bit of extra sleep.

Two confused ensigns looked up at me from their SHARED bed.

My little girl had the decency to blush a little even as she stood motionless still buried in the purple haired boy's arms.

Bradward Boimler was blushing so hard and looked panicked enough to want to run away if he hadn't been holding my daughter so tightly, almost as if he knew my discovery offended me both as a captain and a parent.

“Parasite ?” came Becket’s question.

“Mirror Universe ?” was Boimler’s supposition.

“Robot Clone” I replied and made my escape to the bridge.

* * *

On the next episode, what could the doctors and scientists be hiding from you ?

_**Chapter II: Dear Bradward** _

"I ran a complete suite of medical tests upon myself ... for safety’s sake please contact ..."

`> RESULTS: ['MARINER, BECKET', 'TENDI, D'VANA']`

... WHY THE POOR IDIOT HE’D BE IN CONSTANT NEVER ENDING AGONY ... HA HA HA” Rutherford helpfully commented``


	2. Dear Bradward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Boimler gets some distressing news, Mariner is sure she has nothing to worry about.

I couldn’t help but groan out loud, immediately gaining my friend’s attention.

“Boimler you okay ?” I could hear Rutherford ask.

“Please don’t tell me I have to haul your stick-like body to medbay at this hour ???” came Mariner’s exasperated question.

“I’ve got my surgery kit right here if you need me !!!” Tendi sounded way too eager.

“Nah it’s just I was checking my subspace comms and ugh oh boy all this spam ha ha”

The message that caused me to groan was actually a communication from the Vancouver, from my ex Barb:

“Dear Bradward,

I hope everything is well, I am in the final stages of getting my paper on the so-called `Lover-Parasite` published, the data has been protected of course you are `Carrier-Alpha` while I am `Victim-Alpha` so our private affairs won’t be revealed to the world.

Looking over my data it occurred to me that if we assume the parasite attached itself to you shortly before we met at that conference, I received an initial dose of pheromones which sustained my attraction to you for that entire month we had a long distance relationship.

In short these pheromones are incredibly powerful.

I ran a complete suite of medical tests upon myself and found no harmful side effects but for safety’s sake please contact whatever potential mates the parasite must have influenced on the Cerittos and ask them as well to take at least a basic examination.

All my best thoughts,  
Barb”

The whole series of events was painful to remember but she was right, it was my duty as a Starfleet officer to protect my crew, whatever other potential mates the parasite might have influenced they need to know.

Later during my free time I fired up the Starship Question Language or SQL from a free console and began my search:

`  
> let JOINED_TIME = (DATE BETWEEN 57437.1. AND 57538.0);  
> let TOO_CLOSE = (DISTANCE BOIMLER AND CREW < 0.1 meters FOR DURATION > 10 sec);  
> SELECT CREW.NAME FROM TOO_CLOSE IN JOINED_TIME AND SEX = 'FEMALE'  
> RESULTS: ['MARINER, BECKET', 'TENDI, D'VANA']  
`

* * *

I could see Brad approach our bunk area with a level of dread as if he needed to fight the entire Klingon High Council in an honor duel at once.

This should be good.

“Ugh Mariner ... Tendi you need to get to sickbay and test yourselves ... pleaseDon’tHitMe”

Ok this was not actually good.

My and Tendi’s stares got him to start spilling the beans.

Although he seemed like he wanted to pull out his own teeth more than talk about it.

Can’t say I don’t feel the same, just thinking about those events conjures up a headache.

“Hey Brad don’t worry at least I should be completely fine.” Tendi finally spoke once she absorbed the entire tale.

“Why you ?”

“We Orions naturally have pheromones, the way I can serve with you guys and not be swamped by men I have to turn down or give all the ladies headaches is that I constantly take shots that suppress pheromones.”

“So you see I’m safe ... you’re also safe from me !! Everyone is safe and we have no broken hearts due to science and medicine !!!” she continued

“Yayyy science uhh dodged a bullet could you imagine those poor guys, completely in love with you but you wouldn’t reciprocate because you don’t feel the same ... WHY THE POOR IDIOT HE’D BE IN CONSTANT NEVER ENDING AGONY ... HA HA HA” Rutherford helpfully commented although boy that laugh at the end maybe even Tendi could notice it was forced.

“So Mariner I can arrange with T’Ana to get you looked at right ... “ Tendi changed the subject.

“What ? Seriously you think Brad’s little love bug bit me of all people ?”

“You were on the results list and you were acting a bit ... “ both me and Boimler focused on the Orion girl “ ... well ... jealous more than concerned.”

“Me ? Jealous ? About Boimler who in all of one month had contact with only 2 women ? Worried I’d lose him ?”

Now Brad was giving me the evil eye, the truth hurt I guess.

“Umm excuse me I have other ladies on the list I have to warn” this was so obviously a lie “ like Barnes and Jennifer.” he said and stormed off.

Jennifer ???

He dares bring up Jennifer ?

Oh he’s lucky I completely suppress my emotions about him else things would have gotten violent and ugly real fast.

“Wait why did that last thought seem a bit ironic ?”

* * *

“Dear Bradward,

It’s lovely to hear from you again, I hope your career is going well.

To answer your question: As far as my tests have shown the parasite is incapable of triggering any of the markers for jealousy.

Aka it cannot trigger jealousy alone or directly.

It is of course capable of triggering jealousy the normal way, by making or enhancing attraction towards the host aka you.

When a minimum of 2 potential mates are aware of each other, the potential mate who is not at the moment favored would feel jealousy.

One could assume that if a affected mate was already attracted and repressing it or if her romantic behavior was hard to remark (protectiveness, play fighting, arguing) as romantic in nature then to the outside observer it might seem like sudden jealousy or even paranoia. ... “

I looked at the comm I was about to send Brad, maybe I should have been even more obvious and just write “I AM TALKING ABOUT MARINER, YOU BLIND IDIOT !!!” or would that be too on the nose and qualify as meddling ?

* * *

On the next episode, Captain Freeman thought it couldn't get worse than that singing crystal but:

**_Chapter III: Repression and Rebellion_ **

“Using shrewd diplomacy “ a slide came up of a selfie Ransom took with the Prime Minister’s younger sister ...

“Automatic court martial” I realized.

" ... why not remove the problems of a random pairing ? “ the treasonous cat witch offered.


	3. Repression and rebellion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Freeman returns to her ship and learns that Ransom has authorized an unusual away mission.
> 
> Special: Freeman POV only, implied sex.

“Captain’s log, Stardate 57441.3 I am returning to the Cerritos after successfully adding my own leadership expertise and knowledge of hydroponics to the relief mission that is helping the outpost Cardassia IX with their drought and general agricultural crisis.

It was my honor and my pleasure to work alongside them and get them back on their feet and to lift their gaze to a more peaceful, prosperous and integrated tomorrow.

No one deserves to die of starvation. No, not even the Cardassians no matter how much my husband might rant.”

It was good to be back on the old girl, it was also good to see the Cerritos was not marooned in space, crashed on a planet and generally on fire.

I had to admit I was a bit nervous as by the timetable Ransom had sent me the Beamians the people of this planet we should have setup their communication line to the Federation two days ago and the ship should have been on-route to her next mission.

Eschewing my quarter, I made my way directly to the bridge, everything seemed to be in order, Ransom was occupying my chair with T’Ana besides him and Billups was here as well acting as Ransom’s second-in-command.

“Captain, glad to see you back ! The communication setup is just being completed now, we’ve hit a bit of a snag ... if you care to follow me into your ready room I will explain the solution we implemented.” Ransom said matter-of-factly.

I didn’t like the word “snag” and the fact that he wanted to discuss this away from the deck but he and the others seemed calm and in control so I nodded my approval and we all moved to the ready room.

I could hear Shax read something from his station’s sensors or comms to Billups, who had remained in command now that Ransom and T’Ana were coming with me:

“The fourth insertion has started ?” Shax said with what I thought was a bit of surprise in his voice.

Billups was straight up curios judging by his facial expression, but I couldn’t hear his reply before the door closed around us.

I took my seat at the head of the table in the meeting room while T’Ana was busy entering some data in the projector.

“The main problem was a natural crystal formation in a cave which was unique enough and had just the right resonance to completely mess with the communication relay we setup for the Beamians” Ransom started explaining as a slide with a picture of the cave showed up on the main viewscreen.

“Using shrewd diplomacy “ a slide came up of a selfie Ransom took with the Beamian Minister’s younger sister “ I was able to receive permission from their government to gently and respectfully re-align just enough crystals so that this was no longer an issue.”

“But we needed to do this ourselves, the crystals due to their intense phsionic effects are culturally and religiously significant, the locals will not touch them themselves even if they understood the need.” T’Ana continued as she showed me the equipment designed for the procedure, specialized drills and a series of 3 unique rods with isolinear emitters.

“Psionic effects ?” I couldn’t help to ask, despite whatever the Enterprise’s logs would have you believe those were very rare.

“Yes, they tap into any sentient’s mind and greatly amplify their ... well their lust mainly it’s nigh on impossible to get close to them without succumbing to the need to BLEEP the closest BLEEP you find available.” the doctor kindly elaborated.

“So how did you overcome this ?”

“I did a pshich evaluation of the entire crew ... “Ransom beamed with pride.

A picture of the young man with purple hair that seemed to hang around with my daughter a lot came on the big screen.

“Meet Ensign Bradward Boimler the most sexually repressed member of the crew HELL the most repressed member in general of this crew.” T’Ana noted.

“He can resist the effects of the crystals ?” I asked.

“Our simulations led us to believe he can nearly, just about make it and complete the sequence before becoming a BLEEP in heat.”

“He’ll be fine the effects aren’t permanent, he’s in 0 danger ... in fact the hidden perverse subconscious thoughts revealed by his evaluation make it 99% sure that his desires will be sexual instead of violent or harmful in any way.” my first officer assured me.

“But who would he BLEEP if he’s the only one who enters ?”

“Sadly no matter how much we tried the operation to re-align the crystals cannot be executed by one person. It’s a two person job.”

“So, we had to think of the legal ramifications.”

“You said you had permission from the planetary governor.”

“Yes the problem is Boimler, he’s ensign rank if the second officer would be say part of the senior crew even with Bomler working in the cave and the second officer staying as far as possible chances are by the end they would BLEEP each other.”

“Automatic court martial” I realized.

“So we thought the second team member needs to also be an ensign, thus no power disparity between the pair no court martial.”

“Fair enough, so you chose the second most repressed ensign.” I half said half asked although there was a funny feeling my stomach.

The conference screen shifted to show another personnel file, except this time it was my daughter's face looking down on me.

“Actually we considered our options and offered the second spot to ensign Mariner.” Ransom said like an idiot.

“no, no ... “ I could hear myself saying.

“I mean she’s as far from repressed as possible but Tendi mentioned she thinks they have an attraction and they spend a lot of their time together. If the two teammates end up BEEPing each other with 97% probability why not remove the problems of a random pairing ? “ the treasonous cat witch offered.

“No, No, No !!!”

“Ma’am ? Mariner volunteered to go, I would bet Tendi's observation was correct and she was being protective of Boimler or sought to spend some mission time together ... we sort of didn't go into too much detail about the crystal's effects with them.” Ransom was looking at me like I was the one with porridge for brains and not him.

“I uh mixed in contraceptives and other preventive medications into their usual pre-mission shots so they’re absolutely safe, I also put in a lot of extra lubricants among their supplies which are all human compatible and non toxic of course.”

“NOT !!! HELPING !!!” I shouted as I dashed out of the ready room and towards the transporter.

“Chief I need you to do a emergency beam ou ... “ I called as I entered.

Only to be greeted by the sight of the two materializing ensigns who were returning of their own free will.

“Oh man I didn’t think you had THAT in you Boim-Boim I’m going to be walking funny for a bit from all that ... ugh well ahoy captain .. ugh all that crystal re-aligning we did ...”

* * *

On the next episode, you are cordially invited to 

_**Chapter IV: House of Boimler** _

"It pains me to say this but there is little that we can do, the Mo'Kai are very politically powerful they will not let this slight go, the chancellor is very sympathetic to your plight ensign but his hands are tied for the moment." Worf began to explain.

...

"I can handle Klingon prison, I did it once before, I can do it again ... I'm the badass who doesn't need rules ... I will survive, you would literally get eaten alive in 5 minutes! " Mariner finally spoke or almost yelled at me and a feeling in my gut told me I didn't want to ask why she picked the eaten alive example.

...

Faster than I could react Boimler pulled out his phaser and aimed it at me, I could see behind him Sirella was shocked while Martok just had a devilish grin.


	4. House of Boimler Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mariner gets into trouble with the Klingons, Boimler has a “genius” plan to help.

“The High Council is still debating this “ Worf began pointing to the screen which had all the information about my case, my so called crime, the defendant how each member of the council is likely to vote and etc “but the signs are grim, the most probable outcome is that Beckett will be found guilty and be sentenced possibly even to Rura Penthe.”

"Whenever are things not grim with you ?" I wanted to yell at our ambassador to the Klingon Empire.

If things are not grim then they are always dishonorable with this guy.

“When is it NOT a good day to die ?” I whispered under my breadth.

“What kind of sentencing can we expect from Chancellor Martok ?” mother asked even as she still had a hand on my back trying to give me some supporting contact.

"It pains me to say this but there is little that we can do, the Mo'Kai are very politically powerful they will not let this slight go, the chancellor is very sympathetic to your plight ensign but his hands are tied for the moment." Worf began to explain.

“Even for a Federation citizen it will involve years in prison. But I am still leading my team in the Embassy trying to find a solution there might be some precedent we might be able to organize another trial in a few months.”

Oh yeah just months in a Klingon prison.

Just months of possibly being stabbed every single second.

Just months of having to fight every other sentient just so that I’m not considered weak enough to become a good target to be turned into a prison bitch.

Ok Mr. Courage and Honor I’ll just try and go through that AGAIN and not break as hard as before, for fucks sake if you had been a TOS Klingon I’d bet you could have come up with a sneaky loophole or plan by now.

“Ensign Mariner we should discuss this further in my office, I have a line to the Admiralty maybe there is some news from Earth about your case.”

Why bother, I’m too tired to even snark something back.

“If it’s no problem captain I’d prefer to stay here a bit more and study the facts.” I whispered as I pointed to the PADD’s that littered the conference room’s table.

“Ugh yes, Ambassador please if you would join me the ensign deserves some time to reflect.” Mother said and she gave me a quick comforting squeeze of the shoulder “We’ll get back to you when we hear something.”

I could hear the door to the room open and close and I grabbed a PADD at random with definitely not shaky hands.

Stupid aides or whoever compiled this, they let a lone pathetic teardrop on the screen.

* * *

This was finally my time to shine, with most everyone using the fact that we were orbiting Qo'noS to spend their shore leave that left me with the single best task on the ship.

Cleaning the main conference room !!!

As I was approaching linter in hand, I noticed captain Freeman and a Klingon in Starfleet uniform probably our ambassador leaving the room while deep in conversation their tone intentionally low.

Maybe there was some truth to the speculation that we were still here and not going to a second contact because Ransom was forced into marrying a Klingon princess.

Opening the door, Mariner was inside, reading from a PADD.

No, not reading, she was just looking at it hovering above as if trapped in her head, her breathing intense and quick.

Painfully slow a single tear dropped from her eye and then I noticed the glass surface was already stained with more of them.

The screen behind her was full of data, lists of Klingon names, references to past Klingon trials, summaries of the various legal treaties that bound Klingon and Federation law enforcement, a case file was on display.

“For heavens sake ... “ I couldn’t help but say snapping Mariner to reality.

Still unfocused she looked at me like a dear in the headlights then she noticed what I was reading.

Much too suddenly I was being pushed into the wall with Mariner closer to my face than I’d ever felt her.

“Don’t tell a soul about this.”

“What ... the rest of the crew, our friends maybe they can think of something.”

“No, stop ! There’s no reason for them to stress about this, this is my problem and it’s already a lost cause.”

“But they ... but I ...”

“Don’t make me get Freeman involved, she’ll take my side on this.” she told me and her gaze cut like steel for a moment.

* * *

Days, passed I noticed Mariner was given the easiest tasks eventually no assignments whatsoever.

Good, the least captain bitch could do for her if she can’t save her is give Becket time with her friends.

Rutherford and especially Tendi appreciate all the time Mariner is spending with them but I can’t help but think they’ll look back at this and regret her deception and stubbornness.

I spent every waking non-duty moment in the library, due to their status as long time allies the books on Klingon law were in no short supply.

There had to be something in here, some edge, some legal loophole that would get Mariner out of having to revisit that hell.

And that was of course when she came in, I didn’t even need to turn around to see who it was given the racket she made coming in and the faint smell of Romulan alcohol, the good high-end stuff, on her breadth.

“Skoot, make some room” Mariner told me, a weird glint in her eye.

This was illogical I was seated as a small table with only my single chair besides it, where would I make room for her ?

The answer came when she forcefully dragged my chair a bit from the table and sat herself on my lap.

Ugh why do my pants suddenly feel a bit tight ? Quick think about Klingon inheritance law !!!

“So what are we studying ? ...” she paused as she instantly recognized the script of the books “Haven’t you had enough of Klingons and their honor ? I know I have.” she ended by pouting dramatically.

It might be the sitting in my lap, it might be the hours I skipped from my sleep schedule but her lips never looked more ripe and attractive than locked in that adorable pout.

Her eyes are still fixed on me waiting for me to say something back. A painfully obvious gulp is not what she wanted.

“You know Boims, truth is ... my mentoring of you is looking to be uncertain in the near future ... Please tell me you’ve learned something from all this time you’ve spent under me ?”

Bad imagination, bad libido that’s NOT what she means.

My breathing should really, really not be this rapid.

“Ok, calm down “ she says as she places her hand on my cheek in what is meant to be a comforting gesture but which is not really helping with the pants tightness problem “ just relax and tell me what is your gut, your instinct telling you that you should be doing ?”

“KISS HER !” my interior voice demands

“THROW HER ON THE TABLE AND BLEEP HER GOOD!!!” my strangely censored inner voice continues.

“Ughh ... I need to study more, there has to be something in Klingon law to get you off, I mean out out of trouble, maybe I can take your place or fight as your champion or get a re-trial ... “

Mariner looks at me as if I just slapped her across the face and she gets up from my lap.

"I can handle Klingon prison, I did it once before, I can do it again ... I'm the badass who doesn't need rules ... I will survive, you would literally get eaten alive in 5 minutes! " Mariner finally spoke or almost yelled at me and a feeling in my gut told me I didn't want to ask why she picked the eaten alive example.

She then left me alone, her face a mask of fury as she exited.

* * *

One more day on the ship, one more day of freedom.

The messages for Tendi and Rutherford were done, for when I’d bee in prison with my fate depending on the Federation’s legal and diplomatic teams I had a good chance of getting a second hearing or something.

But god only knows when that would be, my friends might leave the Cerritos in that time pursue their own careers like literally everyone else I knew.

So the recordings were important, doubly so if this time in prison I’m not fast enough, strong enough, desperate enough ... no the messages are important either way they need to know I value them and our time together.

All that was left was Boimler’s message, he should thank his lucky stars I got over his bout of ultra-lameness in the library a few days ago, and would give him this to remember me by.

Maybe I should keep the message short at “Hey Brad you’re kinda cute why don’t we hook up after I finish my time xoxo” that way the universe will conspire to keep me alive through prison so I can die of awkwardness since Boimler will be waiting for me with roses and a teddy bear once I get out of Rura Penthe.

Speaking of the devil, my PADD hummed to reveal a message from him:

“Hello Mariner, by the time you will be hearing this my plan will be in motion and well I might possibly be already dead.

It turns out you can immigrate into the Klingon Empire, yeah I know despite 99% of new citizens citing their motive for entering being as `Klingons conquered my home planet` you can just take an admittedly very hard test on Klingon history, law and culture and become a citizen.

Which I did just a few hours ago, now with the duties of citizenship also comes the right to challenge the reigning Chancellor to a duel.

This is what I plan to do, fight Martok and in the unlikely chance I win as Chancellor I will be easily able to pardon you.

Long story short this is why I borrowed your ba’thleth ...”

No, no, no you IDIOT this can’t be real you can’t be this stupid.

“Should I die this will give Martok enough anti-Federation political clout that he can then pardon you as per General K’orin ...”

I jumped out of bed and rushed to the transporter.

Arriving and the High Council I was greeted by guards who were still laughing

“Oh you want to see the Chancellor as well ? Be quick lest the other `brave warrior` defeat him before you get there !!!”

“Run warrior maiden run !!” I could still hear their jeers as I made my way to the Chancellor’s office.

I nearly ran directly into an aristocratic looking Klingon lady as she exited the door to Martok’s office.

“Mariner Becket, I suppose ?”

“Ugh sorry don’t have the time” I said rushing past her which earned me a tackle that stopped in my tracks and landed me on the floor.

“Don’t worry your mate is safe, it would have been dishonorable for Martok to kill someone as inept as he, even within the context of a challenge.”

I started to protests the “your mate” part but my relief at Boimler being alive must have been evident enough that her mood changed and she helped me up.

“I am Lady Sirella, Mistress of the House of Martok.”

I kept eyeing the door.

“You can enter, the young man was just amusing us with tales of your shared adventures I must admit the events with the parasite were funny enough to get me to spill my drink, so please excuse me while I freshen up.”

I entered, Martok was twirling my ba’theleth, trying it out, as Brad was nursing a broken arm, bruised eye and broken nose.

I wouldn’t have bet on his ribs being that great explaining why he was having problems telling of our trip to the spider farm.

“And I tell her I’m not going down there if my dummy was the only one getting eaten ... oh hey Mariner ... “ somehow despite being quite beaten up Boimler smilled at seeing me.

“Guess my plan failed.” he said quietly to no one in particular.

“Becket Mariner, yes yes finally after all these diplomatic letters and ... songs of adoration I meet you, there must be something truly special in you for you to be worth such effort.” Martok said.

“I am pretty badass.” is all I can say.

“Oh that must be true, but this young man has much much more to say about you “ Boimler somehow still had enough blood in him to blush “may I ask your opinion of him as well ?” Martok was probably drunk explaining why the two of us we were still alive.

Ok this is my chance, death in prison or worse is still my future, my last chance to give Brad a happy memory to carry on.

Come on, brave adventurer girl time.

“He’s my idiot.”

Oh swing and a miss Mariner going for the safe and ambiguous.

Brad doesn’t seem surprised just too tired to insult me back.

“Hah, you’re in luck girl “ Sirella was back in the room “ Martok might be the only man dumb enough to not see through your ruse, well him and your mate.”

“I swear upon the honor of our shared house my lady, insult my intelligence again and see what ... “

“Oh please, you’ve been plotting how to get this human girl out of harm’s way for days and nothing’s come of it, Gowron could have come up with some underhanded maneuver in a heartbeat. “

“Gowron was at least wise enough not to marry a `loving` woman like ... “

Martok’s sudden pause seemed faithful and I could swear his eye lit up with joy for a nano second.

“Boimler, come here.” he motioned to the purple haired man as he retreated towards the back of the office out of my earshot.

A flourish of the ba’tleth was a sign to me that this conversation was private.

Even if I couldn’t hear Boimler was trembling from whatever the Chancellor was telling him.

“But that’s barbaric !!!” I could just about make out when Brad raised his voice in shock.

“It was 2500 years ago, what were your people doing back then ?” came Martok’s indignant reply.

More hushed negotiating, Sirella who was standing besides me was doing her best to eaves drop as well.

The short ritual they did with Boimler kneeling before Martok and the general touching his shoulder with the blade almost seemed like a knighting ceremony, Sirella must have understood it’s significance but her face showed only annoyance.

“Good good “ Martok began loudly as he and Brad returned “ as it is my right as chancellor impressed as I am with this young man’s courage in face of overwhelming odds I give Brad Boimler loyal citizen of the Empire the right to his own House.”

“Long live the House of Boimler, vassals to the House of Martok.”

“You can’t just create a house like that!” Sirella interrupted indignant.

“He has no lands, no troops, don’t worry my lady but the important thing is that in the eye of our laws he is a warrior and has a house.”

“Why ?” I asked, I swear maybe Sirella was right and Brad and Martok were alike in the quality of their plans.

“I’m so sorry about this.”

Faster than I could react Boimler pulled out his phaser and aimed it at me, I could see behind him Sirella was shocked while Martok just had a devilish grin.

The beam of light hit me square in the chest, my whole body going numb.

Stun setting, the lowest of them.

“As Chancellor I declare this legitimate battle over ... “ Martok emphasized the word legitimate as if daring Sirella to say anything “ ... I declare the House of Boimler the victors, and to the victors go the spoils.”

I really hate this plan.

“Now there is an ancient law, that a young warrior upon such a victory can claim among other things a young maiden if she is part of the losing side.”

I guess the asshole must be using some legal definition of `maiden`.

“I claim you.” Boimler says a strange strength in his voice as he puts his hand on my shoulder.

I am so going to break it in the minute the stun wears off.

“Now that this is done, and they are husband and wife in the eyes of Klingon law, of course the maiden Becket is cleansed of any previous dishonor from her life before the defeat so that she might join her new house.”

“Dishonors including the one the Mo’kai brought up before the council, that is null and void now.” Sirella added and I finally finally understood their convoluted plan.

Which involved in order:

Brad becoming the head of his own Klingon House.

Beating me in a battle.

And the two of us being married, which somehow still seems the most insane part.

I’m starting to feel my legs again and Boimler helps me up.

“Does a Klingon divorce still involve me beating up my husband ?”

“Yes.” the master and the mistress of the House of Martok replied in unison.

“Consider yourself partially forgiven then, honey.” I smile at Boims who nervously at first but then in full smiles back.

We lean on each other and make our way out of the office to confirm with some non crazy legal people that this whole farce will work.

* * *

“You didn’t tell them that for Mariner’s pardon not to be reversed she has to be his wife for at least 6 months.” Sirella noted once they were alone.

“Details details, I’ll tell Brad at the bachelor party or you can tell her at the bridal shower ... let’s not ruin their first night with such legal aspects.” Martok smiled as he prepared his explanation to the council why Mariner could not be prosecuted anymore.

* * *

On the next episode, how can your eyes be wide shut when they aren’t even real ?

_**Chapter V: Ghost in the Machine** _

“This is the best day of my life !” Rutherford thought then he looked across the table at Tendi and amended “Best day of my life so far ... “

Captain Boimler dominated the room upright and noble as befitting the commanding officer of the Titan, his face a mask of stone as he looked upon his captive.

“So what will it be ? The life of your fiancee I’d call that quite a bargain in exchange for just the self-respect of one Starfleet officer.” came the taunting question from `Vindicta`.


	5. Ghost in the Machine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the Titan, Brad is alerted that someone is using his data for a holodeck simulation.
> 
> Special: Explicit sex, light BDSM

“Lieutenant junior grade’s log. Stardate 57820.4.

The Titan has docked at Deep Space 9 for resupply and maintenance following our special patrol of the surrounding sector. We are not alone here as the Cerritos is also resupplying following their emergency repair of several close by subspace automation relays.

I must be honest seeing my old ship so close and connected through the station is a sweet nostalgic moment even if it wasn’t too far ago that I served on her.

I was hoping to spend a nice night of shore-leave catching up with my old friends at the local Klingon restaurant, only for Beckett to throw a hissy fit over every little thing I proposed.

Seriously what is her deal ?

You can’t tell me she hasn’t found another ensign to terrorize ? Or a boyfriend ? Or more likely had one of her hundreds of amazing old friends who she served with show up on the Cerritos and also restart a whirlwind true love romance with her ???

In the interest of the sanity and peace of mind of the rest of the group I bowed out so that Mariner could stop being a bitch for one second and at least the three of them can have a nice night out.

Me, on the other hand ? Stuck alone in my cabin reading `Functional Programming: The advanced paradigm for Holodeck Development`.

What a great use of a Friday night :| “

I finished my whining and I was ready to attempt another chapter of the normally very interesting book on a subject I loved, when an alarm sounded in the room.

It wasn’t an Red Alert, it was my personal alarm chime, accompanying it a holographic display (man the Titan was so awesome!!!) appeared into existence above me as I had been spread out on my bead as I gave my fourth and final log for the day.

The interactive display showed a terminal embedded in a larger LCARS interface which was warning me that my personal data protections had just been triggered.

Someone was trying to access my personal logs and other data, I don’t know why more people (cough Mariner and her mom cough) didn’t set these subroutines up to guard their data.

The actual penetration attempt seemed to have originated from a holodeck AI, an artificial neuron network who’s purpose was to drive the advanced simulations of characters.

It had tried to access my data in order to answer some questions that had been asked about it, namely those questions if the API could be trusted were:

Would you leave Starfleet and the Federation ?

What could tempt you to leave ?

What could make you throw of your inhibitions and abandon your fiancee ?

I couldn’t stop my curiosity as I traced the request through the network to an IP that was suspiciously similar to Cerritos’s Holodeck #3, finally ending up at the model that represented the holodeck character my data had been linked to:
    
    
    {
    
        Name: Boimler, Brad
    
        Position: Captain, USS Titan
    
        Age: My real age + 10 (they think I can make captain in 10 more years ? sweet)
    
        Alignment: Lawful Neutral
    
        Attributes: Control 11, Daring 8, Fitness 8, Insight 9, Presence 10, Reason 10
    
        Disciplines: Command 5, Conn 3, Engineering 3, Security 3, Science 1, Medicine 1
    
        Excitation: 30% (is this what I think it is ?)
    
        Description: Newly minted captain of the USS Titan, were he serves alongside his fiancee and first officer, Brad Boimler is the ideal officer of Starfleet, a rules abiding paragon tirelessly fighting to keep at bay the chaos that would corrupt his beloved utopia.
    
        Little does anyone know that beneath his handsome aristocratic exterior a heart full of doubt and temptation keeps him alive.
    
        Pushed to the limit by his own weaselly ambition, his Starfleet assigned mission to capture the warlord Vindicta has become an obsession that gnaws at his very soul.
    
        Even now as the beautiful rogue sits in his brig, his mind cannot leave her be, haunted by questions if he really did capture her or is this just one of Vindicta’s famous multi-layered plots. 
    
        He makes his way to the brig alone, in the dead of the night, ostentatiously to interrogate her about the time stones stolen from Boreth but in truth to satisfy his thirst for her charms.
    
    }
    

Goddamnit Mariner !!!

My calm completely destroyed by her attempt at writing, I didn’t event think about the moral or legal implications as I linked her holodeck to my display.

An image appeared:

Captain Boimler dominated the room upright and noble as befitting the commanding officer of the Titan, his face a mask of stone as he looked upon his captive.

I couldn’t help but look at him, err at me it looked like Mariner had aged me by 10 years matching the backstory she’d given to my character, and I was indeed wearing the Titan’s uniform with captain’s pips.

Although fuck it Mariner I won’t start to have gray hair in just 10 years !!!

But thinking again that might be because she might have mixed my image with a Christopher Pike in his prime ? Maybe added a bit of Khan as well ? My chest was about 10% thicker than it should be.

I then turned my eyes to Vindicta, this was doubtlessly Mariner and not a hologram, though she was wearing a slightly different costume than the one she wore in “Crisis Point: Rise of Vindicta !”.

Her cape was gone from the start, her makeup was more subdued same design but less like war paint and more like she applied regular glamour make up and cried in it intentionally.

Her clothes were the same earthy colors but much less like boiled leather armor, it was more like civilian leather wear, more form-hugging and shiny.

And it had holes and rips everywhere but again this wasn’t battle damage this seemed to be part of the aesthetic to show more of her creamy caramel like skin.

For fucks sake Mariner I bow out of a night with Rutherford and Tendi so that they can at least have fun with you, without us fighting, and you blow them off to do THIS on the holodeck ???

Ugh we are the worst friends ... we don’t deserve Tendi and Rutherford.

* * *

The waiter would be back immediately with our food, although to be honest he could never comeback for all I cared, Tendi was in what I had learned her default chipper mood just talking from the heart.

“And while I am happy for the Universal Translator, I mean a toast of bloodwine to Prof. Sato, I can’t help but want to learn Federation Standard on my own.”

“Oh, why ?”

“I’ve been told the UT makes my words and tone seem unnecessarily grim and serious I mean in reality I’m more optimistic and fun than my tone would imply.”

Talking directly INTO my heart.

“This is the best day of my life !” I thought and as I looked across the table at Tendi I amended “Best day of my life so far ... “

Thank the great bird of the universe for Boimler and Mariner sparring us from their drama this night and giving us some privacy.

* * *

Tearing my eyes a bit from `Vindicta` I noticed the interior of her cell was standard Federation but her restraints were far from it.

She was bathed in a column of light from above, which I really doubt was an actual restraining field more likely to focus the scene on her.

She had cuffs on her hands and feet but again there was no real bite to them, no tracking mechanism nor did they connect to anything they were the sort of soft leather “handcuffs” you would buy at a sex store.

The BDSM section specifically.

The computer was right to judge my, I mean holo Boimler’s level of excitation at 30% this scene was all kinky and zero adequate detention protocol.

Those questions loomed in my thoughts, this programmed had reached out to me because it needed to know what could tempt me err him into Vindicta’s arms.

Into her sweet embrace, an embrace she was all too willing to provide given that I could clearly see Mariner’s pokies through her shirt.

Damn it, even if I was on another ship this whole room was drenched in a erotic miasma, I could see why that hologram needed to keep track of how excited Mariner was making it, my own slacks were starting to feel a bit confining.

“So captain, don’t ignore me ... my offer still stands let me go and I’ll take you with me. I think I can find a place for you under my ... wing on the Vin-pocalypse.” Mariner finally said, I had to admit what she lacked in patience she made up in hidden talents she was using her `Vindicta` voice again but at the same she was laying it on thick she somehow worked a flirty undertone.

The AI was frozen, it could not access my data in order to provide an in-character answer so it couldn’t say anything at all.

Maybe I shouldn’t but I stepped in assuming control of my own self as an avatar in Mariner’s holoprogram.

“Nothing, you foul temptress ... nothing you could say would ... ugh tempt me !!”

Beckket was honestly taken aback by the answer, maybe this program had been running for a long time and she had previously taken the captain to the very edge of temptation.

“Oh screw the Titan Boims, they’re no fun come back with me on the Cerrit ... hm the Vin-pocalypse “ Mariner for some reason was pleading in her real voice now “ they ... I mean the Federation doesn’t appreciate you like I would ! You’d be my first officer !” the Vindicta voice was now back.

It honestly hurt, the disconnect between what she said and what I knew was real, if she had appreciated me, as more than a friend, maybe I would have stayed.

“No, I’m done playing games and keeping you entertained, my future is on the Titan !” my avatar did not convey the bitterness I would have poured into the words but it was sufficient.

I turned my back on her and left her cell, it was petty but it was what I knew would get through to her and sting.

I was on the simulated corridor when I heard her shouting:

“Oh yeah well what about Barbara ?!?!”

Something in me honestly snapped and I marched back in there.

It wasn’t enough that Mariner constantly outright told me Barb was too good for me, that I was a loser who would never get anyone she also spewed some fake “oh I’m sorry for you I’m your friend” bullshit that caused me more hope and thus pain than Barbara ever did.

Barb was only an open wound because Mariner liked to twist the knife in regularly to put me in my place.

I reach out and barely find enough of a collar on her shirt, her top was more cleavage than material, to forcefully drag her up, I want to burn her with my gaze.

“Will You Just Let If Fucking Go ?” I can barely recognize my own voice

For the smallest fraction of a second Mariner seemed concerned which also dispelled the red that I was seeing and I released her.

“Mm mm nice didn’t know Brad had this much passion in him ... Computer raise dominant character trait for `Captain Boimler` by 33%.” she said at first to herself and then to the holodeck.

“Actually fuck this, let’s get to the good stuff ... Computer fast forward to Act 3 scene 1.”

For a split second everything went dark, the holodeck was re-configuring itself and that included my avatar.

When I regained a video feed, I was looking through the eyes of the hologram and not through a more central perspective, I would guess I was on the Vin-pocalypse given that the walls were some sort of hybrid of Klingon and Romulan designs.

Despite being the product of artistic license it showed it’s roots in the era when the Romulans and the Klingons had their famous alliance, Mariner did always love this period in history.

Although the bed I was chained to, matching cuffs with Mariner but this time with real chains, definitely isn’t historically accurate, it’s softness betrays that it was designed for couples who like BDSM rather than for prisoners of war.

I couldn’t help but think about the fact that when I entered her little scenario Mariner was the one “captured” and being dominated.

Was this her thing, could she despite her non-bedroom behavior be a bottom ?

Given that she changed the game and was now in control, did that mean she was now the top ?

Did all of this add up to her being ... I think the term was ‘a switch’ ?

“Ahem ... “ I could hear her behind the bed but I couldn’t see her from my angle “I won’t give you this option again ... “

“What option ? WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME ?” I yelled back with very real frustration.

She couldn’t get over me getting a promotion, despite her still having our friends and hundreds of other friends and lovers I didn’t know about probably, she didn’t want to hang out her at the station, yet she programs my image in her holodeck scenario ?

“I want to know why all my friends go away ?” she replies her voice shaky completely different from Vindicta.

“You, Amina, soon Tendi and Rutherford will be recognized and go to better ships ... you’ll all leave me behind.”

Who was Amina ? Probably one of her old lovers.

“When I was at the academy, I had so few friends because I was the ambitious one who was pushing everyone to perform and eventually I got promoted away from them ... then when I realized rank was bullshit with time the friends I made got promoted from me.”

“Nothing I do, I can’t keep you around.” she finished dejectedly.

“Mariner ... I “ I feel like a tool you’re only telling me this because you think I’m a hologram I’m basically spying on you “ don’t know what to ... “ and I want to help you but I DON’T KNOW HOW.

Painful seconds pass and I think she regroups mentally.

“Oh but now I have plenty of beautiful toys to bind you to me, either through the carrot or the stick.” she says as she finally moves into the front of the bed so I can see her.

My jaw drops in my room as I view the image, Mariner’s in an all leather outfit military-esque with an officer’s cap, a leather trench-coat and a riding crop in her hand.

The “body” of the outfit owed more to lingerie than armor or uniform but missing parts of it to reveal her intimate areas, her pert breasts gloriously exposed, her pussy free to caress.

In her dungeon my hologram body just gulps and automatically becomes erect, but I can’t fault the AI as in my very real bed I quickly give in to my desires and throw off my pants and underwear so I could take my inflamed cock in hand.

She moves in for the kill, getting completely in my personal space just like she used to do on the Cerritos.

Why did something that used to be so natural feel so painfully erotic now ?

Mariner began to nuzzle on the hologram’s ear and I would have sold my soul for that sensation, instead I begin to stroke myself.

“Come to the Cerritos we could have so much fun, you’d be my second in command and my lover ... just say you regret choosing Starfleet and I’m all yours.” she purred as she embraced me in a way that seemed much too intimate given that she was in dominatrix mode and thought I wasn’t real.

Beckket was resting her head on my chest and I swear I could feel her heat back on the Titan comforting me.

For a few heavenly seconds I was swept away by her promise, until the memory of what actually had transpired between us dragged me back to cold reality.

“You only want me because I’m not there with you ... “ she gives me a look to the effect of ‘no duh, dummy’ but I continue resigned in my defeat “if I were to say yes, you would instantly stop wanting me. So in truth it doesn’t matter what I do, we will never be together either I’m not available and you want me or I’m available but you don’t want me ... there is no winning option.”

Beckket stops and I can see her thinking over what I just said, until she smiled:

“Heh stupid A.I. that’s not how feelings work, that’s not what happens in real life your logic is just screwed up, ironically if Boims were here he could have coded a better simulation one that didn’t believe such bullshit.”

I can’t help but smile, one of only a handful of moments of recognition I got from her and she doesn’t even know she’s doing it.

“Whatever, I can crack you even with your kafka-eque logic loop.” she said and she grabbed the hologram’s penis and started stroking it while at the same time planing soft kisses on it’s chest especially on the nipples.

Well my mind was broken anyway as I could feel her work even if there was no tactile connection and I started stroking myself again.

“Come back ... “ she pleads again disturbingly without the fake accent so it really felt like it was my Mariner calling me back.

“No, I said it already, there’s no choice might as well keep my pride.”

I don’t know how much i believed that or was I playing along with fake resistance so that the session would continue and I could at least cum while watching her sucking off my holo-self.

Mariner was plainly annoyed and she simply pointed to a screen on her wall.

“Fine then, let’s get serious ... I have your little fiancee in my dungeons as well and I’m not such a gracious host with that slut as I am with you, a man of such firm ... character ... let’s take a look how commander Barbara Freeman is doing ?”

Barbara ... Freeman ???

A video feed began playing, yet the woman that I was looking at was clearly Beckket, she was wearing her hair neatly like she did when she was gunning for the Sacramento promotion and she was wearing a Titan gold uniform as if she was in Operations, wearing it completely to regulations actually.

Ok this was Mariner’s little porn universe so the uniform was a lot tighter than it needed to be, but still the uniform was as per regulations.

Everything about her was some weird mirror image of the real Mariner, a by-the-book classic lady version of the woman I knew.

“Oh Bradward please help me !!! I’m so weak and submissive I need a big strong rules abiding man to save me !!” the image on the screen called out in a slightly higher pitched version of Beckket’s voice all the while posing in her chains and doing doe eyes for the camera.

“So what will it be ? The life of your fiancee I’d call that quite a bargain in exchange for just the self-respect of one Starfleet officer.” came the taunting question from `Vindicta`.

“This ... I mean ... What ???” I can only say.

I felt like now I knew something about her about how she saw me, the world, even herself. But this was all an accident she didn’t want to show me this.

“Tell her ... “ she began anew straddling me “break her heart, tell her you love me more, tell her I’m better, tell me I’m worth more to you than the Titan.”

“YES ...andNo” I finally blurt out.

“Ugh remember when we were under attack by the Packleds, I was trying to tell you something about the Sacramento about me loosing my best friend ... that was the truth but not the whole truth, I chickened out at the very end.” my confession began.

“I was, I did fall for you I was desperate because I wanted to have a chance at being with you but if you left the ship. And after I confessed and you just continued fighting I knew we couldn’t be and we would only ever be friends at most.”

“At the bar, after everything was said and done what I was trying to say I was trying to convince myself I could be happy with a failing career and with there not being anything romantic between us.”

“People always talk about choosing your career vs your personal life but I had neither so when Riker offered me a position on the Titan, THERE WAS NO CHOICE there was nothing between us to possibly counter the offer.”

Beckket didn’t interrupt me but I could see all color draining from her face and her eyes growing harder.

“No no, you idiot you shouldn’t be telling me this, I don’t need this on my shoulders right now.” she said plainly.

“To get it finally off from my chest, right after the battle when we were safe I turned back and you were the only thing I could see, there was no bridge, no other people, no Titan, just you and me ... but I was looking at the woman I loved and you were looking I don’t know at something, thinking about something else.” I finished my voice barely a whimper by the end.

“I don’t want to know this, seriously ... I can handle that I have some ugh feelings about you ... but if it was only me ... “

It was as if my universe had light in it again when I heard her words again.

“This therapy session was supposed to lift my burden ... “

“Therapy ? At best this is a mixed therapy and porn session.” I snarked back.

“Ahh shutup before I shove a ball-gag in you mouth.”

“You want to know something you dork ? When you were confessing in the heat of battle I was smiling you gave me some extra strength to carry the day, ok you didn’t see me smiling back at you due to the chaos ... and me sort of intentionally hiding my smile from you.”

“Mariner !!” I interject indignantly.

“And furthermore right after the battle when you were looking at me, you know what I was thinking about ? That I understood what Amina was trying to tell me about ... how it feels like to lead a team of people who trust you ... for the first time in years I was dreaming about being a captain again but YOU were there too, my perfect XO and husband ... “ she finished wistfully for the first time today giving me a look of pure wholesome wanting.

But then her mood darkened again.

“This was supposed to help me, not dump this entire responsibility about knowing your secret love for me on my head ... what do I do ? Just call you up and admit I learned something from your logs because I made a holo you ???”

“I’m not a hologram character actually.”

“Oh fuck, not another rogue holodeck program I so do NOT want to call up Billups about this and I’d have to purge every log before calling him and you would be trying to kill me ...”

“No, see it all started ...”

As I explained to Mariner she seemed to believe me, at least she blushed a little and then closed her trench-coat giving herself a bit of decency and then she got angry, real angry.

SLAP

SLAP

“You know this is illegal, I don’t care if the holodeck tried to access your data you ARE INTENTIONALLY SPYING ON MY PERSONAL HOLODECK USE !”

I’m pretty sure due to the data access we are legally speaking in a gray area.

“I know.” I conceded.

“Confessing to me and getting me to confess like the little sneaky weasel that you are. How do you think I feel ?”

“Alone.”

“Alone.” she repeats her eyes a little softer.

“Hurt.”

“Maybe, a little.”

“Unappreciated.”

“Definitely.”

“Fearful.”

“I ... know we’re talking about you now.” she said stopping just short of admitting it.

“Like another future is possible now but you still have to hustle for it.”

“Be careful Brad, you’re starting to sound less lame.”

“Like you have needs that are unmet.”

“Say it.” she whispered daring me.

“Horny”

“I can relate ... big lieutenant man has a cabin all of his own on the Titan ?”

“I’ve got transporter privileges. Just say the word and you will be with me in a nano second.”

“Engage” Mariner smirked as she leaned down to kiss my holo avatar for the last time.

* * *

“So I’m a terrible person right now but ... honestly I got to say I’m kind of glad Boimler and Mariner blew us off and we could spend this evening just the two of us” Tendi finally admitted as we walked the promenade.

“Same here, don’t worry these days I find their drama pretty tiresome myself. Heyyy could you just speak to me in Orion for a bit without the translator I want to hear the real you,”

“Igen, drámájuk nagyon idegesítő, remélem, hogy a jövőben talán csatlakozhatnak hozzánk egy négyes társaságban.”

I couldn’t help but grin, my memories from the implant might be gone but choosing to continue those Orion language lessons I had begun was the best decision I could make, I thought as I subtly extended my hand for us to walk hand in hand.

* * *

On the next episode, what is family all about ? It’s lesson time, it’s lesson time !

_**Chapter VI: FreaQky Friday** _

“I cannot believe you did that ? How could you ? Months, literal months of planning, of maneuvering, of waiting for just the right circumstances and you just waltz right on in and BLOW EVERYTHING UP !!! And who has to handle the fallout ? Me of course ...”

“It’s a maneuver that was really popular back at the academy in my day you take the joy stick and ... it’s complicated to describe with words but not that long to do in practice ... heh your father always says I’m the best he’d seen doing it.”

“I was wrong to be mad at you mom, I didn’t know how much stress you were under keeping everything together when you’re in charge .. ugh I understand now that I went too far in breaking the rules.”

“You’re not the only one to blame Beckett, being in that chair looking at everything only from reports you forget that on the field you sometimes just need to trust your instinct improvise and then follow the rules later.”


	6. FreaQky Friday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mariner and Freeman are forced by Q to switch bodies, much is learned.
> 
> Special: Off-screen sex

“Captain’s Log, Stardate 57830.3. Oh man I get to make a captain’s log for real, Boims will die of jealousy when I tell him ... ahem ... I, Beckett Mariner following a particularly vicious shouting match with my mother and captain Carol Freeman have attracted the attention of the capricious god-like entity known only a Q.

Lamenting was he saw as the disappearance of family values and society’s pressures tearing up parent-child ties Q summarily snapped his fingers and exchanged consciousnesses between me and my mother.

Basically my mind has been in my mother’s body for one week and vice-versa.

This was apparently to ‘teach’ us to embrace other perspectives and be more forgiving of each other.

Up until now we’ve managed to survive, as per Q’s demands we have kept this a secret from the rest of the ship, and even had a successful albeit very difficult second contact with Ornith III, a long lost Aurelian colony.

Hopefully this proves to Q that we can indeed work as an unstoppable daughter-mommy team.”

* * *

“I was wrong to be mad at you mom, I didn’t know how much stress you were under keeping everything together when you’re in charge .. ugh I understand now that I went too far in breaking the rules.” I admitted as I hugged my mother the moment we entered her office after coming back from the surface.

Mom only broke the hug to reply.

“You’re not the only one to blame Beckett, being in that chair looking at everything only from reports you forget that on the field you sometimes just need to trust your instinct improvise and then follow the rules later.” I could hear those words spoken by her in my own body but with complete sincerity.

“C’est tres bien, now I hope you two won’t forget this lesson any time soon. Adieu” We hadn’t noticed Q was in the room in his judge robes and on his throne until the pan-dimensional imp interrupted us.

Just as fast he introduced himself with a snap of his fingers he had disappeared, but with the exact same gesture the world righted itself and we were back in our proper bodies.

“Thank God it’s over !!” mother said and for some reason we were again hugging until we realized what we were doing and jumped apart.

“Uhm good job with the High Duke, his file mentioned he is very wary of outsiders you must have showed a lot of patience in dealing with him.”

“Thanks mom, you also did good work I was so worried about you and Boimler when I heard they decided to go with the two guardian version of the maze for their stupid ceremony, but you pulled through in one piece.”

For the first time in what felt like years mom kissed on the forehead and ruffled my hair, like she used to do when I was a child, and then sat at her office.

“I’ve got form 04-02-G to fill out for this successful first contact, there’s no need to keep you here for this mindless work why don’t you go back I bet your friends are up for celebrating at the bar.”

“Yeah I’ll bet, thanks mom. Ugh ... you’ll also need form 07-10-B just so you know.”

“The regime change form ??” Oh the disappointed tone was back. “Beckett what did you do ???”

“Relax, it was only a small palace coup. Did you honestly not notice the guy I shook hands with at the end had a completely different plumage ?”

“A small coup, filling out that form will take me 6 days ? I retract what I said your disregard for protocol is NEVER warranted, you just take the easiest most convenient path and create needless chaos that people like me have to clean up !”

“Oh yeah ?” I could feel the outrage from our initial shouting match coming back “Well I retract the bullshit I said as well, protocol is never needed you’re just relying on it as a crutch ... andAnd ... You’re a hypocrite !”

“What ? Explain !”

“You said you always follow ‘the rules’ but if you had did that ... it would have meant Boimler was the one who fought the second guardian in the cage match ... instead of what obviously happened and you (in my body) fighting both of them.”

“That’s what I DID ... I followed protocol I respected local traditions and I only fought one Minotaur Boimler fought the second one !!”

She what ? How could she risk him like that ? Brad wasn’t specialized in fighting or melee, he had only basic training and his fencing skills.

“How could you ?” I was yelling now “How could you risk his life when you could have finished that fight with basically 0 troubles given your skills and my trained body ?”

“Do I have to remind you Brad Boimler signed up to be in Star Fleet, he knew what that entailed !” mother told me in a serious tone “And you were the one who assigned him the mission while in my body.” she finished now with a hint of indignation.

“I thought it would be an easy win to put on his record, I didn’t know they would change the rules for the maze at the last second, Boims is Command yeah but he’s a diplomat, a speech maker. He’s a lover not a fighter.” wait that last part didn’t come out right.

Freeman raised an eyebrow and a small smirk appeared on her lips.

“Honey we’ve been over this, I’m proud of your morals and your attachment to the officers you serve with but for when you rise though the ranks again you have to accept you can’t do everything sometimes you have to order other people to handle parts of the mission.”

Great this lecture again.

“You have to place some trust in the men and women you work with, you have to learn to inspire them so that they can be their best not just hang back and let you do the work and handle the risks.”

“You don’t get it, Brad ... “ was too soft ? Was too weak ? No, I didn’t really think these things about him even if he was far from your typical warrior. I wanted to explain why it didn’t feel ok letting Boims getting in a real potentially deadly fight, but I just couldn’t get the words to line up with how I felt.

“Beckett your little boyfriend ... he can be a great officer, he needs to grow still but the potential is there ... I just motivated him a little, just a quick ‘Andorian Ice Breaker’ and he took on that Minotaur thing and won.”

Please tell me I heard her wrong.

“Brad isn’t my boyfriend.” I say slowly and plainly.

Mom’s smirk disappeared.

“Uhm what ? Come on Beckett you’re no longer a teen, no need to hide your boyfriends, it’s not like I’m mad you’re a young woman ... “ mother trailed off.

“No seriously, me and Brad aren’t a thing.”

An awkward pause follows.

“Not even friends with benefits or whatever you kids today do ?”

“Oh My God, tell me an `Andorian Whatever` isn’t what I think it is.” I couldn’t keep the despair out of my voice.

“It’s a maneuver that was really popular back at the academy in my day you take the joy stick and ... it’s complicated to describe with words but not that long to do in practice ... heh your father always says I’m the best he’d seen doing it.”

“Ewww mom gross !!! Too Much Info ! Too Much Info !”

“Well he was kind of an edge and I needed him motivated and focused, I knew I was in your body so I didn’t want to do something too ... involved with your boyfriend ... this seemed like the best choice.” Mother was apologetic trying to explain herself.

“SO WHILE PRETENDING TO BE ME, YOU GAVE BRAD A HANDJOB DURING THE MISSION ???” I yelled.

Mom began to mumble what I thought was an apology.

“I cannot believe you did that ? How could you ? Months, literal months of planning, of maneuvering, of waiting for just the right circumstances and you just waltz right on in and BLOW EVERYTHING UP !!! And who has to handle the fallout ? Me of course ...” I didn’t even know what I was saying I was just letting the rage speak out.

“Look I’ll just call him and explain so that there isn’t any ... consequences to the rapport between you two.” she offered.

“Oh that will be some conversation ... Hey Brad you know how you thought I was helping you out by giving you a quick tug ... it was actually the captain who was in my body at the time ... see it’s a bit complicated it involves Q and Freeman actually being my mom ... NO we’re not doing that.“

“Fine with me, you handle Bradward and I’ll get to filling the mission reports for the admiralty and ugh we’ll call this even ?” mother offered as a sort of apology.

“I just ... I can’t get how you’d think that I and Boimler were a thing ... “ I thought out loud.

“Geez I wonder where I got that impression from “ mother said as she retrieved a pad from within her desk and began reading from it:

“Stardate 57436.2 Ensign Boimler despite at first being very cooperative ends up hiding whatever breach of protocol you did on Galar Prime from me, claiming memory loss due to that spider goo.“

“Stardate 57446.2 You come to me and specifically ask to be assigned on that diplomatic escort mission, this is a first for you as you normally hate this kind of diplomatic work. The only thing special about this mission at the time was Boimler’s presence.“

“Stardate 57501.4 Following internal investigation into the scheduling deception, reports of you and Boimler sharing drinks during duty hours show up on my desk.”

“Stardate 57538.9 Despite only having your own quarters for a couple of days during your temporary promotion, security logs show a visitor and one visitor only: Bradward Boimler.”

“Stardate 57601.3 Lieutenant Brinson’s paper on the effects of the so called `love parasite` describe a fight with another potential mate whom the parasite had driven to intense jealousy, the lieutenant speculates that the attraction of this woman might possibly have been not based on pheromones and said woman might have been in an relationship of sorts with the host or was at least planning to be.”

“Barb you treasonous little ... she wrote that in the paper ?” I was shocked on there being an academic paper apparently stating I liked Brad.

“No names are given in the paper but security logs from the platform are clear that only you, her and Boimler were there.” mother replied and then continued reading from her overbearing snooping mom list.

“Stardate 57663.9 Nothing special but in that report Ransom gave when he thought Boimler was the head of a cult it included you as potentially his lover and mistress of the cult given how much constant physical contact he’d observed between you too. ”

“Stardate 57752.6 Dr. T’Ana mentioned Boimler turned himself into a ghost trying to impress the visiting captain, now context is important here was he trying to impress Ramsey because she’s a captain or was it your current lover trying to show off before your old academy girlfriend ?”

“Mommm!” somebody please kill me ... Q you still there man ?

“Stardates 57791.1 – 57818.4 Don’t think I didn’t notice the two of you coming to the bridge late and your uniforms obviously ruffled. I didn’t say anything when you told those aliens the ‘we were working on a shuttle’ excuse. Also if we're on the subject of shuttles that time you two were in my yacht ... and that time I expressly asked you not to share access to the senior officer's replicator ...”

“Fine geez stop. Ok I admit mistaking me and Boimler as already a couple might have been ... from a certain point of view ... I guess ... Can I go now ?”

“Dismissed.” Mother said and began typing on her PADD.

I barely exited her office when I was confronted by Brad himself.

“Tough showdown with the captain ?” he asked.

“Yeah ... I guess.” Let’s get this started then “Ok you can give them to me.”

“Give you what ?” God he’s so bad at being coy.

“The roses and teddy bear you’re trying to hide behind your back. I assume we have a date planned in an Italian villa on the holodeck, a full banquet programmed by you ?”

He hands me the flowers and the bear all the while sporting the cutest blush.

“Actually it’s a horse ride through the Bajoran plains and then a small picnic, if you’re up for it ?”

“Yeah sure.” I say and give him a quick kiss on the cheek.

* * *

On the next episode, Brad survived the wedding but can he survive meeting his in-laws ?

  
_**Chapter VII: House of Boimler Part II** _

“House Mo’Kai are the Klingon’s traditional spies, they predate the Empire’s official Intelligence agency. They have assets we don’t know of, unofficial alliances with the Tal Shiar, Obsidian Order and basically every spy organization in the known galaxy, they can bring to bear some truly frightening resources if they want to get Beckett.You can never know who will be blackmailed or activated to get evidence to annul the marriage and get Beckett in their hands for revenge.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Captain Freeman's list was fun to write, I had this idea of a chapter just being her watching Mariner and Boimler from a distance and having her own observations it eventually culminating when Boimler lets the secret out like he did in episode 10.
> 
> Ultimately I judged the concept as not being able to carry a chapter on it's own but I could integrate it in here, the stardates are the official ones from memory alpha when they're available.
> 
> Each point from Freeman's list more or less matches with one episode from the series, each episode having what I see or what Carol would see as hints of attraction, this story is supposed to be in place of episode 9 so her list includes only episodes 1 - 8.


	7. Short: The Javert Experiment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Boimler lets his pride in being a security officer de-evolve into an obsession with catching Mariner.
> 
> Special: AU, implied sex

“See anything you like ?” the evil young woman taunted me as I swept my tricorder once again over her body.

“This is strictly a random check!” I lied through my teeth, I knew Mariner had to be behind the latest wave of contraband that was plaguing the Cerritos.

Mini holo-program disks, containing the worst, most degenerate, pornographic filth were being used by the crew and I knew they must be coming unto the ship via Beckett Mariner, the science ensign who had become my nemesis, the villain in my constant righteous struggle as Security to keep the Cerittos safe from contraband.

“Are we done here, Boims ?” she leans into my personal space “Or do you want to progress to a strip search ?” she whispered, her words intending to mock but still playfully ... painfully erotic in some way.

Someone, not me, audibly gulped. I realized I had been pointing my scanner at her bosom a little longer than necessary, then put it back on my belt the damn thing was useless.

“We’re done here, Valjean.” I respond and try my best to give a glare as I disentangle myself from her presence.

“Valjean was the hero and Javert the villain, you dumb grunt!” she yelled after me.

...

“Why haven’t you caught Mariner yet ?” Captain Freeman is rightfully yelling at me in her ready room.

“I uh, the disks are very small, much easier to hide on her person than her usual contraband.” I try to defend myself.

I wanted to call Beckett’s bluff and ask for the captain’s permission to give Mariner a full strip and cavity search the next time I have the opportunity. But at the last moment I reconsider.

“Is my faith in you Lt. Boimler ... perhaps misplaced ?” she’s doing the disappointed mom routine, something she has mastered to an art.

“Ma’am I believe her scientific knowledge combined with the technology she has access to from her duties in the sensor labs, is how she’s beating my tricorder scans.”

“ I ... am also convinced she is breaking into my quarters and moving my pottery around just to annoy me. But I can’t prove that yet.” I can't help but revealing to the captain.

Freeman gives me a look of disbelief and mocking that I swear she stole from Beckett herself.

“Ugh I just ... Just catch her !!! I want results, not excuses. Dismissed !!!”

...

Ok so technically speaking what I’m doing is illegal, but sometimes you have to break some privacy rules to preserve the greater public order rules. Odo would approve.

As I work on breaking Mariner’s locker during the ship’s docking at Station 77, when Mariner and most of the crew is on shore leave, I can’t help but think on the woman herself.

She’s in Sciences, her specialty is Archaeology but the Cerritos has no need for an archaeologist so she spends her time fiddling with tech in the sensor labs.

She’s smart, damn smart. She should have been at least a commander by now, given what I CAN read from her file, most of it is locked. My best guess is she’s pissed off enough people that she’s an ensign now and no one in archaeology wants to work with her.

Which explains how she’s been able to modify her uniform to resist my security scans.

And she mocks me. Oh how she mocks me.

She did a whole WILLING AND IMPROMPTU striptease out of her uniform during one of my checks at the beginning of our current battle about the mini disks.

That is how I know the disks can only be in her bra or panties.

Yes, her locker is open.

Now I just need to get one item and figure out how the hell she’s beating my scanner.

Ugh well ... logically speaking ... I need to get something she might not notice is missing and she has a lot, a LOT of silken black panties and bras.

I grab one.

...

For all intents and purposes they seem like a normal pair of panties.

Albeit a very sexy garment, and NO not just because they’re Beckett’s.

The tricorder scans in my quarters reveal nothing, but something has to be special about them, that’s why I’m in the sensor labs right now I need the more powerful tools.

“Oh you are so DEAD right now ... “ a familiar voice startles me.

“Ugh ... this isn’t what it looks like ?” I swing my chair around knowing I might as well turn in my badge and phaser to captain Freeman.

“You mean you aren’t a pervert ?” I nod my agreement that I am not a pervert. My heart is beating too fast right now, I can't trust my voice.

“You didn’t steal my panties to wank off into them or do god knows what ?” I nod again. Every instinct in my body is telling me to run but Beckett is blocking me.

“You don’t find me attractive, at all ?” she asks a sly smile on her beautiful lips. Her eyes are firmly on my crotch.

I gulp once, painfully audibly.

“Weird thing is ... I believe you ... well mostly.” She replies eventually and I can see her position shifting, she stands more relaxed. And damn me but I mimic her and relax a little as well

“Really ?” I can’t believe my luck.

“You’re too obsessed with the rules to be your garden variety panty thief, so I think we can cut a deal.”

Oh god here it comes. Do a small “favor” for her.

Move some contraband, a small innocuous thing at first but then she has more blackmail on me from that.

Then another favor, a bigger one. And another and another.

I dig my own grave, sinking deeper and deeper into her control until I’m just her little Security puppet.

“You’re going to help me with a little experiment. Take off your pants.”

“What ???”

“It’s ok you’re not attracted to me so this experiment will provide interesting information .” Beckett says a coy smile on her lips.

She slowly approaches me, once again getting so close I can smell perfume and I think a slight hint of whiskey, I can see her reaching for her panties from the lab table and my hands are working on their own to unbuckle my pants.

The cool air of the laboratory hits my private parts when my pants are finally off, I can feel it even though my boxers. I wasn't anywhere near erect but Beckett's intrusion into my personal space and her previous order awakened something down there.

"Objective: Answer the question can a uptight ... rules-bound ... idiot ... male be stimulated through sufficient pressure and friction to ejaculate at the hands of a female he has on numerous occasions professed to NOT be consciously attracted to ?" my ability to think was rapidly dwindling but I suspected she was just stringing words one after the other to give her hands enough time to rub my cock through my boxers to get me ready for the next stage in her game.

"Subject is prepped ... " she said her words so sterile but her tone so lascivious as after what felt like a heaven and a half she finally released my cock from my underwear and was handling it directly " first material for contact silk, initial speed slow, force applied minimum." Beckett had no wrapped her panties around my member and began gently massaging me.

...

My punishment is living in dread for days, just waiting for Mariner to make her move and report my crime to Freeman. My best guess is that she wants to kill me by a combination of the stress and the tantalizing memories of our encounter I can't help but replay over and over in my head. Until one evening I found another pair of her panties lying on the bed in my quarters, a summons from her.


	8. House of Boimler Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meeting the in-laws, discussing the nosy neighbor.

_**Mariner** _

“House Mo’Kai are the Klingon’s traditional spies, they predate the Empire’s official Intelligence agency. They have assets we don’t know of, unofficial alliances with the Tal Shiar, Obsidian Order and basically every spy organization in the known galaxy, they can bring to bear some truly frightening resources if they want to get Beckett.”

Dad had literally just gotten on the Cerittos from the USS.Oakland, having barged in on mom’s 30 minutes and counting lecture/yelling concert, not even bothering to introduce himself before starting to lecture us on the political and strategic context of my own marriage.

“You can never know who will be blackmailed or activated to get evidence the marriage is just a legal loophole to annul it and get Beckett in their hands for revenge.”

I think even Boims was glad for the diversion, I could literally see him going from frightened about mom as usual to more and more used to her threats and speeches at the end he had become just as jaded as me.

At least getting lectured by an admiral was new for him, I could see in his eyes that he was a little star struck, he probably hadn’t seen an admiral in the flesh since his graduation ceremony at the Academy.

I shifted my gaze to mother for a bit who had finally sat down at her desk and was bringing out the bottle of the good whiskey I knew she kept in there.

I signaled her to take out another 3 glasses.

I got to handle it to her she had managed to threaten us for 30 minutes just on strictly protocol and generic Star Fleet issues alone, never once did she bring up “oh and Boimler by the way the woman you married is my daughter that also pisses me off”.

“I’ll treat this with the utmost seriousness sir ! I won’t risk Beckett’s safety no matter what they throw at me !!!” Boimler assured father in a tone that was trying to be brave and manly.

Brad could treat choosing his morning cereal as a matter of the utmost seriousness so to my ears this was less impressive.

“Good, very good ... son. This is what I want to hear ! We will spare no expense to get you two youngsters over that 6 month threshold so that Beckett’s crime is officially and permanently erased.”

But dad seemed to like it, even throwing in a little in-joke (one that Boimler couldn’t possibly get yet) with that 'son' appellation.

Mother rolled her eyes.

She finished pouring us all a drink, I took mine and handed one glass to Brad, who gave me a look but accepted it once he saw dad doing the same from mom.

“I will speak with Worf, I know you’ve already briefed him but since Martok’s plan relies on such old laws and customs my bet is that we will need some research from Worf and his staff about how you two will need to behave so that the marriage loophole applies. I ... don’t like to say this but I really doubt you will be able to live like say an estranged couple would on Earth for 6 months and expect that the law still defends Beckett from the Mo’kai”

“Well no sense in wasting time we need to build our cover story right now.” mother said and activated a ship wide broadcast through her combadge.

“Attention crew of the Cerittos, I am sure that many of you are curious about our prolonged stay on Qo'noS, I can finally share the good news. Our extended shore leave has been to facilitate a joyous event which I’m sure you will all be thrilled to hear about, the marriage ... the joining of lives between two of our very own crewmates: Beckett Mariner and Brad Boimler.”

It might have been my mind playing tricks but I could swear I heard a few “What ?” ,“Who ?”, many “WTF!!!”s and Tendi’s exited shriek of joy through the bulkheads of the ready room.

My “lord husband”, was trying to be stoic but a blush was quickly appearing on his features.

“Being a captain ... it is not unlike being a mother in many ways, so it is with only pride and joy that I make this announcement because in a very real way our family ... here on the Cerittos ... has just gotten stronger. Celebratory shore leave will be awarded to everyone and drinks at the bar tonight will be on me. Freeman out.”

God she’s really laying it on thick.

“That doesn’t even make sense we don’t use money at the bar ! .. Boims could you please just excuse us for a second “ Everyone was looking at me, I grab Brad’s hands and give him a little squeeze “Just pretty please wait on the corridor and don’t leave I’ll call you right back” I explain while pushing him towards the door.

“I need to talk something with the captain and admiral.” I try lamely to explain to the wounded puppy dog expression he throws at me before the door closes.

* * *

_**Boimler** _

If I had any illusions that Mariner would treat me differently i.e. stop pushing me around and hazing me after saving her ass from Klingon prison, they stopped when she shoved me out of the office.

If it was anyone else than her I would have thought that they were trying to kiss ass with both the captain and that admiral, spinning the story to minimize my actions and gain favor for themselves.

But that wasn’t Beckett, so something was really off, about the whole situation.

By the time she opened the door and called me back in, I’d received half a dozen congratulations on my new marriage from crew-mates that I didn’t personally knew but who were just passing along the hall.

Especially weird was meeting Ransom, he had wanted to give the captain some reports not only did he stop in his tracks to give me a long friendly congratulation he kept insisting I meet up with him and Shax and Billups at the bar whenever I wasn’t busy with my new blushing bride.

“I was implying whenever you’re not busy BEEP-ing Mariner.” he said even tough we both knew what he meant.

He then seemed to forget about his reports when I told him Freeman didn’t wish to be disturbed and continued on his way whistling a tune.

Finally I was summoned back inside.

Once I entered Captain Freeman’s ready room the atmosphere was somehow different, the bottle of whiskey was much diminished, the captain was rubbing her temple as if trying to ward off a headache, the admiral had gone from his military style stance to a more relaxed one and was now showing a small smile.

And Beckett looked really apprehensive as if she was a child and had to take an injection, knowing it was inevitable but also dreading it.

“Bradward ... so ugh Brad I needWant I want to introduce you to my parents.”

The simple sentence somehow finally drove the reality of what we had to do for 6 months, be a couple ... I mean pretend to be a married couple for half a year without it being obviously a sham.

This meant meeting her parents, it probably meant I would need to introduce her to mine. It meant finding a way to convince people we were sleeping together. It meant coming up with a cover story, luckily no one had asked up until now but it was inevitable.

It meant a thousand tiny things that added up to our lives not being the same, it meant me eventually fooling myself that Beckett actually felt something real about me and then getting my heart ripped to shreds in 6 months.

It meant day in day out being in her company being her “husband” but it all being just a lie.

Ok focus, one thing at a time. Might as well get in some ass kissing if I was here.

“Is the captain lending us her comm station so we don’t need to book one of the common ones ? Is that why we’re still here ? Because if ... “

Freeman shakes her head indicating a no.

“ if that were the case I’d want to thank you captain ... “ I finish my thought lamely.

“So is the admiral ? Does he have one on his ... “ I continue looking at the man.

“No, son. That won’t be required.”

“Give him some time, he’ll figure it out eventually.” Beckett snarked.

A thought pops into my head, the admiral just barged in never introducing himself, and just started talking with Beckett.

Actually he hugged her, which seemed weird as hell.

“I never got your name, sir ?” I venture.

“Admiral John Mariner. Delighted to meet you son. I was so certain getting my daughter out of this without any prison time whatsoever was impossible. But you did it.”

“Guess that’s why I keep on hearing about ‘The Boimler Effect’ and `that super cute ensign I work with` ouchh ... “

Mariner didn’t even wait for him to finish his joke before elbowing him in the stomach.

Mariner’s father was an admiral, AN ADMIRAL !!!

It did explain a few things about Beckett ...

“Wow this is ... GREAT. Mariner .. ugh Beckett if my dad was an admiral I’d never stop talking about it.”

“Yeah ... yeah I know.” she said rolling her eyes.

“You two need to work on that, I don’t know the latest idiotic trends but in my day most couples didn’t refer to each other by their last name.” the captain noted.

I and Beckett nod to acknowledge she was correct but I couldn’t help but go back to the fact that the admiral was secretly her father.

“I just. Please don’t blame for saying this but you two don’t really ... the family physical resemblance is hard to spot.”

“Oh Beckett is actually the splitting image of her grandmother on her mother’s side in terms of looks, I’ve got pictures you will see that ... “

“Oh dad please no, anything but the family album.” Beckett whined.

“And well personality wise, they’ll both deny it but my little girl inherited all the fire from her mother.” admiral Mariner continued.

“Ohh then we’ll need the comm link after-all to contact mrs. Mariner we ... I still have to explain a lot ...”

“Actually I preferred to keep my last name.” captain Freeman interrupted.

“Well it does have a certain ring to ... WHAT ???” I realize what the captain just said and I look at Beckett and then at Freeman.

Beckett.

Freeman.

Beckett.

Freeman.

Beckett.

Freeman.

My new in-laws probably think I have a mental disorder, Beckett is having what I bet is the first but not last episode of being embarrassed by me being her husband.

My mind hurts from the truth, patterns of understanding painfully form themselves through memories both pleasant and not.

The image I had of captain Freeman as an impartial, dedicated officer who tried to do the best for her crew and treat us all equally, an image that yeah cracked a lot with the rage virus incident, is now shattered.

But at least some of my nagging “uncertainties” about Beckett got cleared up.

“So that’s why you get away with the stuff that you do ... but is this allowed I mean a mother being the direct commanding officer of her daughter wouldn’t that cause concerns with the higher ups ... ah yeah admiral I forgot.”

All 3 of them are looking at me as if I had just accused them of being a conspiracy, which I kind of did. But a good conspiracy. Damn it.

“I ... I ...I’m usually much much better at meeting the parents.” I said trying to shift the subject.

“See this is why I didn’t want to tell him ... if it’s only going to be 6 months.”

“He would have figured it out, mother !! Eventually ... Anyway Brad is the one who risked his life and was ready to be chopped in half by Martok for the smallest chance to protect me ... so he DESERVED to know.”

Beyond Beckett’s words, her arm which had snaked around my waste as if to further show to her parents who she was talking about, gave me strength.

Her touch made me straighten myself, regain control of my breathing, somehow it warded me against the captain’s glare, which to be fair was now softening, and the admiral’s persistent gaze.

Things would be fine, I would leave this first surprise family meeting alive and more important with Beckett at my side.

* * *

_**Freeman** _

The door to my ready room slid open and ensign Barnes walked in, saluting me and my husband, obviously intrigued as to why she was summoned here and why was an admiral present.

I hand her a PADD, on it were detailed instructions for a specially designed suite, it was the best accommodations I could setup for Beckett and her “husband”, the most space, the most security, all of it designed with redundancies to allow my daughter to live with the man and maintain the deception while not being forced to actually be a couple.

Or I might be off base on this and the two of them will start fucking like rabbits of her their own volition the second they get these quarters.

Who knows with Beckett ? Brad was clearly not her usual type physique-wise though it was also apparent to me that she was sweet on him to a certain degree.

And about Boimler ? It was clear since he “failed” the mission I gave him to spy on her nearly a year ago that the normally dutiful ensign was under her influence.

“Ma’am a question if I may ?”

I sighed, I needed someone in gold to do all this setup. Normally I would have talked with Billups but for obvious reasons I wanted the least amount of questions as possible.

Barnes as an ensign working in Ops and who I had personally given favor too, I had hoped she would simply comply.

“It’s Starfleet protocol ensign, when two officers are married or when an officer has an civilian spouse on board they can ask for a larger family-type quarters, the captain will then at their discretion provide it if it’s possible.”

“Still this seems like a very large apartment especially since Boimler and Mariner are a young couple and don’t have any children.”

“Do you second guess all of your captain’s orders Ensign, or it this a special case ?” John intervened in a low voice, he wanted discretion as much as me and being an admiral it was easy to be incredibly intimidating.

“No sir !” Barnes replied automatically.

“Sirs, permission for two punctual questions as they pertain to my assignment ?” she finally continued but in a shakier voice

I sighed again, still at least this wasn’t Billups he would have been much harder to scare.

“Granted.”

“You asked for a level 3 security proofing on their quarters ? That is much higher than usual and will require more time and equipment.”

“I know what I asked for ensign, your second question ?” I replied using my ‘captain’ tone, this needed to be done not debated.

“They will be setup on Deck 15 ? I thought that entire deck was for reserve material and space for special mass evacuation missions ?”

“There’s actually a wing of the deck that is habitation ready, that is where you will need to join the 2 type Beta quarters into the new combined quarters, the remaining quarter is already occupied by Lt. Steve Levy ... ugh he will be Mariner’s new neighbor.”

“Is something the matter captain Freeman ?” John asked.

“Levy, is ... well he has a habit of being a nuisance and a bother with his crackpot ideas he can’t stop talking about. I put his quarters on 15 especially so that he wouldn’t unintentionally start more fights with his conspiracy theories about how ‘Wolf-359 was an inside job’ or `The Dominion War didn’t actually happened!`.”

Both my husband and ensign just stood there not quite believing what they had heard, John’s foot was tapping a sign he was keeping his temper under control while Barnes had her right eye twitching.

“Do I want to know what he thinks about the Cardassian War ?”

“No.” actually I had a few more funny stories about what Levy thought was true but I wanted to share them in private.

“I just ... Permission to speak freely ? My family was so affected by the Dominion War I just can’t fathom someone thinking it one big hoax ... my uncle risked his life in so many battles and missions ... my aunt still lives EVERY single day with the consequences from the battle of Cardassia.”

“True, let me tell you ensign even now we at the admiralty are still working to re-rehabilitate our veterans that gave so much. It just boils my blood to hear some junior officer spout such nonsense.” John said his words carrying an undercurrent of contempt.

“Admiral, if I may ?” Barnes seemed to be more calm now “I’m not a counselor but I know this type of thinking, how one begins seeing conspiracy theories everywhere. Lt Levy is a victim he’s hurt in his own way.”

She then continued to analyze the man.

“Something happened to him or maybe he was born this way he can’t handle the obvious CHAOS that underpins our day to day lives, so he wants some ORDER, his brain is searching for patterns. He wants someone to be in control of it all even if his feverish imagination conjures up nefarious masterminds as being behind everything.”

“Your point ensign ?” this had been way too much discussion for some clearly laid out orders.

“Ma’am your advanced diplomacy seminar was a gift to me, it helped me reach out to some extremely different people and understand them. May I use the skills learned under you to try and reach out to Lt. Levy ? Maybe with someone to talk to, he can be moderated, guided back to a more healthy state of mind ?”

I knew there was a reason I liked her.

“That’s a noble project Barnes, helping out one of the crew who may truly need it, if you feel you have the time you have my blessing. Now I want those quarters for the newlywed couple setup. Cerritos Strong !!”

John was trying not laugh at my totally cool ‘Cerritos Strong’ slogan. I’ll show him once we’re alone!

* * *

On the next episode, Beckett and Brad arrive at their new literal house (but actually it’s just their new quarters) that is if nosy neighbors and spies don’t get in their way!

_**Chapter VIII: House of Boimler Part III** _

“Captain, a party of Klingon warriors wielding melee weapons has appeared in the transporter room ... they are led by Chancellor Martok, alongside him there is Ambassador Worf ... Captains Riker and Picard ... Professor O’Brien and Doctor Bashir ... Lieutenants Paris and Kim ?”

“This is a ship of lies and secrets, but I will get to the bottom of everything. I’ll expose them all for the greater good of the people of the Federation !!”


	9. House of Boimler Part III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Explaining how things work to your single friends, Barnes and Levy discuss the great Dominion War hoax over some drinks.
> 
> Special: Mentions of Tendi/Rutherford, Barnes/Levy

_**Boimler** _

On our way to our bunks to collect our belongings and maybe catch a few hours of sleep Beckett took the first opportunity and shoved me in a supply closet.

“Mariner what the hell ?” I said the line which seemed like it would become my catchphrase

“We need to think what we’ll say to Tendi and Rutherford.”

“We already planned that with the cap ... with your mom and dad, we had a secret thing going on and then we got drunk and finally took the big step on Kronos.”

“Ok that might work for casual questions but those two are our closest friends here, they’ll smell the bullshit. They will be suspicious as hell already and how many questions do you think you can field about me ?”

“Ugh so then we tell them the truth, that it’s all just for show and we swear them to secrecy ?” I offer.

“Tendi is so bad with secrets, she’s basically a reverse Romulan once she knows half of the ship will hear about it the next day.”

“At least let’s tell Rutherford then ?”

“No!” Mariner said annoyed “You know he’s sweet on Tendi, he’ll crack the instant she tries to pump him for information.”

“Great so our whole deception will fail basically from the start ... Do you have any plan or something ?” I inquire.

“Gahh I don’t know ... it kills me to have to lie to them ... let’s just go and wing it. At least we can use this to test out acting like a couple, it won’t be easy. In the mean time try and think up things we could do to try and fool people.” she says relaxing a little.

“You could try grabbing me by the collar and shoving me in random closets ?” I lean in and smirk.

We arrive at our bunks and luckily Rutherford and Tendi seem to be somewhere else, we begin gathering our belongings not that there’s much you can keep in the space allocated to an ensign.

Just when I think we are free to retreat and work out a more convincing act and more elaborate lies, someone yells from behind us.

“THERE THEY ARE !!!” Tendi’s voice can barely contain her glee, as she jumps on Mariner’s neck trapping her in a hug.

“Hey man congrats, big step you guys took.” Rutherford was chipper but more constrained as he offered me a fist bump, which I happily returned.

“Yeaah so I bet you have questions ? I mean how, when, why the secret, why Brad, why the wedding in a hurry, why Boimler ? I know because ugh sometimes I ask these things myself ...” Beckett finally began after she could tear herself from Tendi.

“More like ... what did it take so long ? ... who did you think you were fooling ? ... were you aware of the betting pool ?”

“Betting pool ?” I and Beckett ask at the same time.

“See they’re already doing it ... “ the Orion girl elbowed Rutherford as if to prove a point from some past conversation.

“Just like you said.” our cyborg friend acknowledged .

“I knew Moimler would come into this world, she just took her sweet time doing it but she will grow strong and healthy!” Tendi said beaming with pride.

“Sorry, what ?” I can’t help but ask a quick glance to my side reveals Beckett is as in the dark as I am about whatever the hell Tendi was going on about.

“OHH ... see in Orion culture we symbolically refer to a true couple, a serious relationship especially a marriage, as if it were a separate being. A composite person if you will, with it’s own life, characteristics and it’s own name.”

Tendi continued.

“By our custom well it depends it’s more of an art but I think the composite name for Mariner and Boimler would be ‘Moimler’ ... “

I really want to say something but I just breadth and remember my diplomatic training and my respect for all the weird-ass cultures in our universe.

Mariner is quicker with thinking on her feet and more shameless:

“So that would mean after we get setup, Moimler is going to have Tendiford over for some tacos ?”

The implication causes Rutherford and Tendi to look at each other, and I guess something connects or some bullshit because they’re just locked gazing into each other’s eyes.

I and Mariner profit from this to make our escape from the embarrassingly easy conversation about why the two of us are a couple and married.

* * *

_**Lt. Steve Levy** _

I was in the middle of some critical research for my next podcast (the people need to know that the Maquis were just a front for the ‘Bluegill’ parasites) when I heard a commotion on the hallway.

Now that I finally had some neighbors I was glad things would be more lively on this deck, although I would miss the silence as it was a blessing to my investigative and technological research.

I couldn’t help but divert my attention to what was happening outside my door, this deck was so silent that you could easily hear such things, maybe I was about to catch wind of a new conspiracy.

“Yeah okayyy thank you SO MUCH bye bye NOW!!!” came Mariner’s sarcastic tone followed by the door to her and Boimler’s quarters being shut.

There was someone at the door, probably an engineer from OPS as the newlywed’s quarters had non-stop teams working on it, completing it in record time.

Curios ... maybe signs that Freeman and Boimler are in league for some plot ???

Unexpectedly the chime to my door rang, for the first time ever someone was asking for access to my quarters ?

I let them in, and I’m greeted by the sight of an very attractive Trill officer who introduces herself as Ensign Barnes.

“Hey Lt. Steve Levy ? So I was working next door and I noticed you created a few requests for various fixes or upgrades to your quarters ? I have the rest of the day free so if it’s okay with you, we could get on them ?” she says flashing an insanely attractive smile.

Honestly she could have been an overweight Tellarite with morning breadth or whatever as long as someone from OPS was finally acknowledging that I exist and I didn’t deserve to live in this half broken down mess.

Although it honestly didn’t hurt that she was gorgeous ... come on Steve keep it in your pants don’t bother her, this is just her job.

She’s civil to you because she’s an professional.

“Yes, I registered a couple ... well 52 requests for various things that need doing but ugh I have a list here if you could do the shower then maybe my datalink those would be the best ... tough I do have them organized based on priority, length of time, difficulty and other factors on a PADD here somewhere ... “

“ .... sorry for the mess.” I add lamely well aware how chaotic my quarters was.

“What you’re joking this place is so orderly ... it almost feels like home ... And please don’t tell me to the captain but at least nothing crawled up your ass and died like with Mariner.” she began to make small talk as she took out a handful of instruments out of her toolbox.

“I’m not one to gossip or give much credence to rumors ... “ Barnes continued as she worked a isolinear rod to get it ready.

“Neither am I ... “ I reply, of course I did very through research on any theory as the Illuminati were always doing counter-ops.

“But I think they, Beckett and Brad might already have some trouble in paradise ... isn’t it just WEIRD and STRANGE how they got married overnight in a Klingon ceremony ?”

“Not really, I know for a fact she’s fancied him for a while now ... “ I reply, my podcast and that extra work on the subspace sensor could wait.

Barnes was very good company as she just lapped up my story about that time Mariner was so convinced Brad’s girlfriend was some kind of infiltrator, that she came to me and asked me to brainstorm some theories for her wall.

Barnes couldn’t stop laughing from the console she was working in, about how Beckett exploded when I shared my conclusion that Brad’s girlfriend was normal and how she was searching for ulterior motives because she was jealous.

Only problem was that the Trill was always moving, rotating down bellow as she worked in the wall.

Try as I might my eyes couldn’t keep away from her shapely behind, almost as if she was flaunting her assets.

“Ok, shower is fixed, lights are fixed, heating is restored to optimal AND of course your datalink is not only at 100% now but I upgraded your security access to Level 4 and gave you debug capabilities.”

“Level 4 ... “ I wanted to pinch myself, an attractive woman appearing out of nowhere, fixing all my problems, laughing at my jokes, now giving me enhanced access, I was dreaming.

This has to be some dream I will wake up from any second now.

“Yes yes I know, theoretically only us in Engineering should have those accesses but I have to admit ... when I came here to work on the Boimler’s suite and I noticed your requests I sort of ... pleaseDon’tThinkStalker looked you up ...”

Oh she’s one of THEM finally coming to silence me.

“... I can’t believe we’re so close in age, only 2 years apart ... if I had gone to the Academy campus in San Fransciso we might have met there ... but you’re ALLREADY an lieutenant and acknowledged as a prodigy with sensors.”

“So I thought it was a crime your data access was being staggered who knows what you can do now in your private research with better access.” she admitted sheepishly .

“I’m not an prodigy I just had superiors who believed in me, an love of science and sensors and a natural curiosity.” I can feel my face reddening I wasn’t used to this much positive attention.

Man, I was just being paranoid, maybe just maybe I was lucky enough to find someone nice on this ship.

“About curiosity, can you lend me some brainpower ... I noticed some things about Freeman’s requirements for the Mariner-Boimler quarters that just DON’T MAKE SENSE they have 2 king-size beds united into one but still detachable they have an non-standard couch that can be extended into yet another bed ... The captain had me run a level 5 security proofing.”

“What, level 5 ?? That’s insane, visiting dignitaries don’t get that most of the time.”

“Aww thanks glad to see I’m not the only one that finds it weird. Ugh I don’t know if this is too upfront but could we continue this discussion maybe at the bar ? I also watched a bit of your podcast and I have so so many questions ... like changelings ?”

“Changelings more like the biggest hoax Starfleet has ever pulled ... “ oh this night will be so great I can’t help thinking while I grab my uniform jacket.

“Right ?? I mean Admiral Leyton was just desperate to limit our freedoms ..." Barnes began.

"And then what do you know a whole race of perfect shape shifting spies appear BY MAGIC they could be anyone they have this secret empire far away they're allied with all our enemies the Cardassians, the Klingons ...” finally someone who looked at things for what they were under the surface.

I just hope she didn’t see the episode from my podcast on ancient joined Trills and how they potentially abducted human slaves while pretending to be gods.

If this night goes well, I might take that one down, it was always more entertainment than serious investigation.

* * *

_**Mariner** _

“Yeah okayyy thank you SO MUCH bye bye NOW!!!” I told Barnes, happy I could finally kick her out.

“God, was she always such a snoopy bitch ?” I couldn’t help but ask Brad as I took off my jacket to relax in our new quarters.

“What ? You always had nice things to say about her.” Boimler replied as he was taking out his clothes and putting them in the closet.

“Well ugh that was when I was single and ready to mingle ... “ I couldn’t help but tell the truth “ ... now that I’m the matriarch of House Boimler a respectable Klingon noble lady that isn’t interested in those types of short affairs, I need to re-evaluate people.”

The patriarch of House Boimler was by the perverted look in his eye too enthralled in imagining such an encounter between myself and Barnes to laugh at my ‘respectable matriarch’ sarcasm.

“Plus she replicates for you a freaking pottery wheel without questions but I want a few extra shelves and suddenly she’s all ‘why do you need more shelves ?` fuck that noise !” I continue to vent.

“Heyyy !” Brad replied defensively “ Now that we have so much space is it a crime for me to want to pursue my interests ? ... Also why DO you need so many shelves ?”

“I want to bring out my Toby The Targ plushie collection out of storage.” I admit sheepishly.

“Oh ... really ? Man the guys at the bar will love this, the toughest ... strongest ensign on the ship loves Toby ... “

“I WILL GUT YOU !” I said grabbing him by the collar.

“Okay okay ... “ Boimler grabs my hands and gently gets me to release him, he’s growing more and more comfortable touching me I realize “a hobby is a hobby, I promise I won’t mock “ he continues earnestly “How many do you have ?”

“This” I point to the large dufell bag on the floor “ ... and a few crates more.”

Brad keeps his word and doesn’t say anything.

“I just hate nose-y people ... now you understand why after meeting my parents ... and like dad said we’ve got to take care of people selling us out to the Mo’kai.”

“How long has it been since you’ve slept ?” Boimler asks after yawning.

“Ugh I think 48 hours, I partied thinking I would be going to prison soon, had some stuff to wrap up, had to save you from your idiotic plan, we had to explain everything to the embassy, then of course my parents, moving all our stuff etc.”

“Same here kind off 48 hours, studying for the citizenship exam and passing it, implementing my SUCCESFULL AND NON-IDIOTIC plan, then basically same as you.”

We were both semi dressed now and tired, we kept looking at the huge inviting bed ( which we could separate into individual beds) and at the couch which would be made into yet another bed, also larger than our ensign bunks.

“I’ll take the couch.” Brad said in a tired, a bit weary voice.

“Wait ... no.” great now he was looking at me, I needed to explain myself, what I wanted our new situation to be like, what my limits were, what I understood his limits to be, just how deep we would go with pretending.

Dammit if this was just pretending to have a short term doomed relationship I had so much experience with the subject matter I would have gotten an Oscar.

“That won’t work, there could be an emergency or someone could come in uninvited or someone could spy or ... it would be clear if we sleep separately that the whole marriage/house thing is a sham.”

“So you’re proposing ... we act as adults, as friends ...”

“As friends who already saw each other in our underwear since that time you spied on me for mom” he rolls his eyes “and I’ve already seen your penis” memories of the Barb incident cause a small blush on both our faces “ and you damn well know as fellow officers if we were on an away mission we would sleep near each other for safety.”

“Yeah ... yeah it’s not a big deal.” Boimler smiles as he accepts my reasoning.

I move to grab my Ultra-Long Toby collectible plush from the dufell bag and I place it on the bed, separating it into two halves.

“My side ... your side.” I point.

“I want the right side, I sleep better that way.”

“Ughhh whatever man, whatever.” I say and we start getting ready to sleep.

Boimler is looking at me funny, like really watching me move about the room.

“What ?” I snap.

“You let you hear down from your ponytail ... you look different that’s all ... youLookGood.” he says the last part quickly and under his breadth but I hear it and smile just a little, but facing the wall so that he doesn’t see.

We’re in the bed now, and it’s one of those annoying situations where you’re too tired to fall asleep directly.

“What do you plan to do with all these Toby plushes after all ?” he can’t keep himself from asking, from the other side of the bed.

“Just have them Boims, they give me a sense of calm, eventually pass them on to the kids.”

The admission is sudden, and it’s more intimate than I expected, but something maybe the context that I revealed it just to my husband in our bed makes the moment cozy enough that I can finally fall asleep.

* * *

_**Freeman** _

“Captain, a party of Klingon warriors wielding melee weapons has appeared in the transporter room ... they are led by Chancellor Martok, alongside him there is Ambassador Worf ... Captains Riker and Picard ... Professor O’Brien and Doctor Bashir ... Lieutenants Paris and Kim ?” the Delta shift ensign that looked disturbingly like my daughter said to the bridge.

“Melee weapons ? I need more details, there are Klingons we are talking about ... “ the only race that have designed a melee weapon specifically to handle matters of taxes not being properly filled.

“Security scans show they are clubs, and the whole party is moving in a relatively orderly manner to the bridge, everyone is also dressed in Klingon fashion.”

“Captain I would venture the clubs are of this model.” Ransom pulled a club from to the side of his chair.

“Why that exactly and why the BEEP do you have one with you ???” T’Ana gave voice to my thoughts.

“They’re ceremonial clubs to be used in Kal'Hyah, basically Klingon bachelor parties, they’re used to beat the hopeful groom to enlightenment and a deeper understanding of traditional Klingon wisdom.” Ransom helpfully stated.

“Please don’t tell me you’re also involved in this ?” T’Ana said to Shax in a disappointed but surprisingly soft tone.

“Ransom invited me and Billups, Rutherford was already invited by the groom himself.” Shax admitted.

Ok that explained some things, Boimler always was more of an introvert Sam Rutherford was probably the friend he actually invited, Martok and Worf were here because Martok is Boimler’s overlord and godfather.

Picard and Riker, were both dispatched here some time ago before Brad’s mad plan in the hope that their prior experience with the Klingons would lead to a diplomatic solution.

The others I’m sure will be explained, but my mind kept going back to Ransom.

“Boimler invited you ? No offense but I didn’t exactly see the two of you drinking at the bar after your shift.” I ask Ransom directly.

“Ehhh a ... friend ... told me Mariner would need to have a Klingon bachelorette party and Boimler a Klingon bachelor party, I talked with him when we meet at the cantina and you know how Boimler is ... he really looks up to us on the senior staff so he extended an open invitation then I spoke to Billups and then Shax.” my XO said somewhat sheepishly.

Something seemed off about the story, about how big Bradward’s party was, but to ask the wrong question or too many questions would have repercussions with Martok and the other VIPs in attendance

* * *

_**Ensign Barnes** _

When I slept my ears could be just as sensitive as a Vulcan or Ferengi’s that’s what I liked to think, thus hearing the door wosh at the Mariner-Boimler was no great feat at all.

And even Steve was awakened from our post love-making slumber by Mariner’s shrill voice yelling on the hallway:

“Well good, if that’s the hill you want to die on, then good luck at your party ... I HOPE YOU DON’T COME BACK BOIMS ... DON’T YOU SARCASTIC VULCAN SALUTE ME ... I’LL BE ONE SEXY WIDDOW !!!”

“Uhm changelings aren’t real, Romulans are running the Vulcan government ... ” Steve mumbles still half asleep as he wakes up

“Good God ! It used to be so peaceful here ... “ Steve said he then moved his hand to my thigh and started massaging it “ ... then again if they hadn’t been quartered here we would never have met ... “

The smile which was starting to form on his lips, died though and his face shifted to a more neutral thinking expression. He was trying to guess if this was a one time thing or should he hope I want something more ?

“And will meet ?” I ask although I can already feel what his response is. He gives me a surprisingly tingly and tender kiss on the forehead as he now felt safe.

“I hope so, I meanIReallyLikeYou ... and it’s not like I’m your supervisor so the lieutenant/ensign thing shouldn’t be an issue. Ohh and if you’re worried about the bunking situation ... don’t ... Ransom isn’t that much of a a-hole to enforce you not spending the night here.” Levy said as his breadth returned to normal

“Speaking about a-holes ... Mariner is a total bitch, I hope we’re in agreement though ? And I guess Boimler is the same now that they’re `married` ...” I couldn't help but bring the topic back to the ensign that had awoken us.

“Aha” Levy agrees but not with much vehemence.

Rumor on the ship was that they dated a bit right after Mariner arrived on the Cerritos, so it seems they parted ways without much resentment as he’s agreeing with my low opinion of Beckett just so I don’t get mad.

“I don’t know why Freeman keeps turning a blind eye to her behavior, or rewarding them with such a big and personalized quarters.” I continue.

“Aaaactually “ Steve interrupted me “have you ever noticed that Freeman and Mariner kind of look alike ? And even act alike especially when angered ?”

“Possibly. You’re thinking she’s family, maybe a niece or something ?” I reply trying to keep my tone neutral about my boss.

“Clone!!! Freeman obviously wants to spy on the lower decks and create a controlled opposition to her power, she thus made a younger clone to act as her personal agent.”

“Mmm, now that’s the kind of deep thinking I find fascinatingly attractive.” I purr into his neck.

We are already entangled, our bodies the flesh desires contact, subconsciously they leave their chaotic rigid isolation to find order with the other, my more maleable flesh on his more solid flesh, legs intertwined, my smaller frame resting on his stronger larger one.

“And Boimler ?” I can’t help but ask Steve.

“Wellll I always heard he was a bit off a kiss-ass, he would betray his fellow lower deckers to spy for Freeman.”

Levy paused trying to think of more possibilities.

“I think Mariner is also rewarding him in another way, Voyager developed some pheromones for mind control while they were ‘lost in the Delta Quadrant’ but simple MK-Ultra techniques used within a sexual context could bind him to her just as well.”

He looks to his workbench, then to me naked alongside of him in our sweaty sheets. The conflict plays out on his face.

“If you have an idea or you need to work on something, I’m honestly a bit sore ... ready for a part 2 of course ... but that could be after a break. I’d LOVE to see you work, genius in action.”

He’s like a kid in a candy shop, he kisses me tenderly and quickly on the lips and then flies to his workbench where he starts playing with a gadget.

Eventually I get up, get a shower and get dressed Steve is still working on what appears to be an sensor.

“Mhm I could just watch you do that all day.” I say as I come up from behind him placing my hands on his shoulders.

He didn’t notice me, he tensed up but then relaxed into my massage.

“Why though ? You’re one hell of an engineer, nothing I can do is far from what you can.” Levy asked.

“Engineering is about restoring order to a broken chaotic system, your science is more about finding the order in a seemingly order-less system forcing it if you need to. In this case finding the logic in the apparent chaos and conspiracy of our neighbors.”

“You’re so right ... I never thought I would meet someone that just gets me so much “Steve said earnestly “ And you’ve guessed what I’m doing as well ! This sensor when completed will be able to pierce into Boimler’s house.”

Steve continued now even more inspired.

“This is a ship of lies and secrets, but I will get to the bottom of everything. I’ll expose them all for the greater good of the people of the Federation !!” Steve was almost shouting his conviction in the righteousness of his cause.

“I’m sure you will !” I say as I begin my massage anew to stimulate him to even greater heights.

With this sensor, or another it didn’t really matter, we will record something.

With me coming over and spending the night I will catch something.

The Mo’Kai took Mariner getting away as a slight against them they’ve sent backdoor offers for substantial favors for anyone who will get them evidence they can use to shame Martok and get Mariner to themselves.

These types of secrets and deals might not be planet toppling in scale but they add up, they’re a good asset to have in the world of secret intelligence wars anyway.

If I manage to do this, my superiors, my elder brothers and sisters Changelings in the Great Link, will probably recall me from this dead end spy assignment as a reward.

* * *

On the next episode, hear me out I’m not saying our ancient myths are about aliens posing as gods ... BUUUUT ... ALIENS

_**Chapter IX: False Gods** _

“Sorry for taking you from the Titan lieutenant Boimler, but those papers you wrote in the Academy about the Ventriane culture, you’re the best expert I could find for this mission on such short notice.” Captain Ramsey said as she imputed a flight path into the runabout’s controls.

“Mariner this isn’t some fun four-way picnic, we’ve been assigned on this mission because we have the necessary skills, those scholars might get in too over their heads that’s why we’re their bodyguards and muscle.” Ransom reminded Mariner as if she was on her first mission outside of the Academy.

“I am Lyra, The Queen That Raises The Sun,The Destroyer Of Sickness, She Who Must Be Obeyed !!!” Ramsey shouted at the top of her lungs as her eyes glowed a bright orange.

“I am Arobous, The King That Stalks The Moon, The Eternal Watcher, He Who Rules !!!” Boimler shouted in a voice that was not quite his own.

"Now they're kissing ??? They can't do that ... shoot them ... or something." Mariner remarked to the man besides her.


	10. Short: A captain and his ship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Boimler lives for his job, Mariner is too afraid to pop the big question.
> 
> Special: Time Travel AU

* * *

  
_**“So are you actually a Captain or something else ? I mean like acting captain or feel free to brag if you’re an Admiral that’s slumming it and leading just this one ship.”** _

_**“My rank actually is ‘Captain’. And don’t ever use ‘slum’ and my ship in the same context or so help me God I’ll make even you regret it.”** _

* * *

  
It was an small galaxy after all, I couldn’t help but think.

Exactly 3 days after I made my last threatening voice call to Boimler on the Titan, wherein I promised to feed him to an Armus, we were intercepted by this weird ship on a way to a second contact mission.

The ship was mostly a Sovereign class which had been obviously been patched up with parts from other hulls, both Federation and foreign, and was sporting at it’s rear end a crown of 6 nacelles.

The chroniton readings announced us that yes that moment is finally here, the Cerittos was involved in a time travel scenario.

The captain appeared on our viewscreen and surprise surprise it was Boimler, well a 20 year older version of him.

I was already leaning towards a “bad future” type thing, but seeing a very brief smile of pure longing show up when he saw mom, I knew the future was fucked up beyond all repair.

* * *

  
_**“How many years did it take you to make Captain ?”** _

_**“10 ... but that information is useless to your Boimler, the context is too different, different people, whole fleets destroyed, I had promotions he hopefully will never need to qualify for. If you really want to focus on something focus on the fact that I kept my ship running for 10 years.”** _

* * *

  
Boimler stinks.

I have come to accept this, accept that whatever I saw in him was just me fooling myself. But future! Boimler literally stinks, I don’t know when was the last time he washed his so called uniform.

And I’m being generous when I call it an uniform, a Command top, a pair of too large pants from an Ops maintenance uniform and a type of officer overcoat we will apparently introduce in the future.

The overcoat, more of a trenchcoat, is what I think smells the worst.It’s color coded for the Science division, probably medical with pockets meant to hold medicines and life saving instruments.

Instead future! Boimler keeps on dragging out data rods and isolinear rods from it and passing them out to either Freeman, Billups or myself as we walk him through the ship.

I don’t know how his first and second officers a Vulcan and Romulan respectively can stand to be around him with their enhanced sense of smell.

It’s a small thing but I like that my Boimler by contrast would rather kill himself than tour another ship emitting such foul smells.

* * *

  
_**“What would you say to a young Lieutenant Junior Grade to help him rise through the ranks the fastest ?”** _

_**“You can only rise fast when you are sure of yourself. Don’t be fooled by a glamorous ship like you shouldn’t be fooled by a glamorous woman.”** _

* * *

  
I recognize the Vulcan, that’s Durga she was part of Amina’s entourage that time she came and assumed command of the Cerittos.

The fact that she’s now following Boimler’s orders is one more silent alarm about just how hard the future is.

Tendi is doing her best alongside the other doctors in trying to heal and provide for the 200 or so children Boimler has transferred from his ship to ours.

I’m one of the crew which has had the most contact with the future people, I don’t think anyone else has realized yet that Durga has an episode every 2 hours where she begins to uncontrollably switch between laughing to herself and sobbing.

Every-time this happens the Romulan takes off his Tal Shiar officer overcoat, wraps Durga in it and gently, tenderly sneaks her to a corner. They always stay together exactly 5 minutes.

Then he returns and acts as the first officer in her place until she returns seemingly normal.

I know Tendi is too focused on helping the children to notice that Boimler can barely force himself to look in her direction.

* * *

  
_**“That last answer was bullshit. Fess up how did you do it ? How did you make captain ?** _

_**“It’s not bullshit ... ok ? ... just because you don’t understand yet or I don’t understand at this time ...** _

* * *

Billups seems to understand enough of the modifications future! Boimler insists on making to the comms array we were supposed to install on the planet that he takes absolutely no pleasure in making them.

Rutherford is so engrossed in working with the so called “Paradox Engine” which is supposed to keep the children in this timeline once that the bad future does not exist anymore that he barely talks to future !Boimler.

Nor does he notice that the future captain is making excuses not to be in the same room as him. Just like with Tendi.

Freeman is handling all the interaction with the future ship herself, while Ransom is leading a task force of our best scientists, engineers and security people to glean as much about the future as possible, if we cannot avert it as future! Boims hopes.

Since my Boims is sucking up to Riker right at this moment, it falls to me to pass notes between Captain and XO about what we know.

That’s how I find out our Romulan friend has bio signs that match exactly with a so called “exchange officer from the Vulcan Expeditionary Force” currently serving on the USS.Versailles _._

* * *

  
_**“That's just more bullshit ... you know that if I go to the current you and tell him that your advice is that he leave the Titan, at best Bradward will think I’m messing with him at worst he’ll think I’ll want him back.”** _

_**“Ok ok hmmm real practical advice ... treat your ship like a woman, get to know her strengths and her faults, she has both of them. Learn to live with her, never run away and you will just naturally get at the point where you are the only captain for her.”** _

* * *

  
I corner future! Boims on a hallway and offer to conceal the information about his second officer in exchange for information from the future.

For the longest time he just looks at me, and I am so sure he knows I cannot in good conscience hide this info from Star Fleet.

Or he’ll say he doesn’t care because they will be wiped out from the timeline anyway.

Or that the Romulan doesn’t care, if he did he wouldn't have worn his uniform openly.

Finally he offers me 20 minutes in ‘our cargo bay’.

I never thought of that place as ‘our place’ but whatever I know where he means.

I’ve known from the second he put foot on the Cerittos that he was struggling to look at me most of all.

* * *

_**"Did you stay in Command for all of your career ? Or did working in other departments help you make Captain faster ?"** _

_**"No, our needs in the future ... you do what you can. I've spent years doing what in this fleet would be pure Engineering work. I also served in Security for brief stints. And I'm no doctor but I can keep a bio-bed functional in most cases"** _

* * *

  
“Ok so honestly I don’t know why you’re asking me all of these questions about me being a captain and how I became a captain.” he says and for a beautiful second his exasperation with me lifts the fog of worry and exhaustion that hangs upon him and I can see my Boimler.

“Because you task me Bradward, your betrayal gnaws at me ... I want to have this knowledge, of how you achieved your dream so that I CAN DENY IT TO YOU AND GLOAT!” I practically shout pouring all my drama and acting ability into the words.

The exhaustion is back and he looks at me with a gaze as if knows that I’m tempted just to give my Brad the secrets so I can fulfill my promise to make him an captain.

“I think we’re about done here, I have to speak to your mother for the final battle plan ... but if you want I have time for one more question ... for old time’s sake.”

How do I die ?

When I die do you ever think back to me? Because I’m afraid if you were to die I would constantly think about you.

I take the coward’s way out and ask something about his love life in a sarcastic tone.

* * *

_**"So which ass did you kiss to finally get your own ship ?"** _

_**"You're not going to like it ... but I kissed the ass of the ship, I tended to her, defended her, repaired her. Inevitably the time came when headquarters had to make it official."** _

* * *

One more report I need to deliver to mother from our researchers and I enter at the exact time to hear the two captains disagree about something:

“I just don’t see why your big damn speech has to be broadcast through my ship. My crew doesn’t need it.” Freeman was saying trying to keep her tone reasonable

“My crew doesn’t need it either, we are in complete agreement to hold off how many ships come through the gate to give your engineers time to finish the time vortex generator.” Future! Boimler was giving her the exact same exasperated tone my Boimler gives to me. How much the years can change a man so that his formerly worshiped captain is now treated just as an equal.

“The speech needs to be heard on your ship, for your historians else no glory will be won ... I will not have any history book to possibly exist in your timeline without entire fucking chapters devoted to my ship. I want the story of this day to be told into the eons no matter what.”

His words were like a poisoned dagger to my heart.

All the pain the crew and ship he kept on insisting he loves went through.

Everyone he knew dying horribly.

And Bradward Boimler can’t think of anything except glory and the history books, like every damn captain I knew.

How could I feel betrayed so much, a second time ?

I throw the PADD on the desk, and I only manage to stop myself from spitting in Boimler’s face because mother is present.

* * *

_**“Ok so I have to ask this, how’s your romantic life ? A lover, favorite holoprogram ... a wife ?”** _

_**“... Mariner ... you should know a captain is wedded to his ship. He is in love with his ship. He only lives for his ship.”** _

* * *

About an hour of definitely not crying in the bathroom later I make my way to the bridge, to man my console.

The bastard is on screen ranting to his underlings:

" ... with our sacrifice, we will no longer be the survivors of our war WE WILL BE THE VICTORS!"

I can’t help but get a shiver all through my body, the same earnestness my Boimler used to admit all his dorky thoughts and all his ambitious pipe dreams, this version of him emitted a raw earnest hate and bloodlust.

Everything is going according to plan, Billups reports the machine is powering up and we’re relying on Brad’s ship to protect us from whatever is coming from the portal to stop us, which they do 3 ships of impossible configurations which make our sensors bleed and go insane when we try to scan them.

Brad's ship moves to intercept, he's still on the viewscreen and my imagination tells me he focuses directly on me before pausing, he begins his speech anew but somehow the fervour on his face is more pure. Less like the desire of a general for bloody victory and more like the desire of a poet for his love to hear his words.

“Let Vallhala open it’s gates, let Sto-vo-kor as well ... in not just ONE timeline but in TWO. My only regret is that I cannot do more for her. For the END of one world and for the SALVATION of another, this ship will be remembered for ALL time ... ”

_**"Because there will only ever be one USS.MARINER !!!"** _


	11. Short: Advanced nepotism

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beckett trades insider info to her husband in exchange for holodeck hours 
> 
> Special: Set within the House of Boimler continuity please read those chapters before this one
> 
> For visual reference, the Mariner and Boimler reading pose I am trying to describe is the one from here: https://64.media.tumblr.com/945278f5e7f6624dde9781572eb8330d/ca7d2f263ae945f9-ce/s500x750/d5d94e0354a8f7a0a97a66ae298ebdb703af6916.png art by lastoneout.
> 
> Also the art is more wholesome than what I turn it into.

“Hey, Boims I couldn’t help notice you have an absolutely huge block of holodeck time lined up and approved ?” Mariner said in place of a greeting as she entered their quarters.

“Yeah, and I need every bit of it.” Boimler deadpanned not even looking up from the PADD he was busy calibrating psychological models on.

“Well I doubt you need it more than me and I doubt what you’re cooking up has more artistic value than THIS.” Brad could by now read Beckett’s tone well enough to understand there was some serious undercurrent to their conversation that she wasn’t walking away without some of his holodeck time.

But more importantly that she needed to talk, vent about something or hopefully just gloat about whatever ‘THIS’ was, he turned his chair to at her, his PADD left on the desk.

‘THIS’ was also a PADD and was now being shoved in his face for him to read.

As he proceeded to try and comprehend it’s content, Beckett proceeded to indulge in her own curiosity about Boimler’s work.

Of course instead of moving a chair over to the desk, which was absolutely an option if you were sane or understood the concept of `personal space`, Mariner simply treated his lap as the chair and seated herself not even bothering to turn the whole chair back towards the desk.

Her weight was both physically acceptable and emotionally comforting so they just proceeded to become one whole, Boimler reading in one direction towards the room leaning on the chair’s back and nozzling Mariner’s neck and Mariner leaning on Boimler’s chest her chin resting on his shoulder as she picked up his PADD from the desk.

“Why do you have an elaborate revenge fantasy against the captain written up as a movie script ?” Boimler couldn’t help but ask in a weary tone.

“Why do YOU have pysch simulations coded up for most of the crew ?” came the reply in a slightly suspicious tone.

“The captain is selecting candidates for the ‘Advanced Diplomacy’ workshop she will lead, I wanted to pre-interview and get an edge ... they’re actually pretty advanced it wasn’t easy but I got access to personal logs then I modified the holodeck’s data parsing module to ... “

Beckett really couldn’t follow along as he delved into more and more arcane programming principles, but his voice, now that he was both sure of himself and motivated about the subject, was very soothing in a strange way, so she just went along for the ride while inhaling his scent.

Eventually Brad inquired about her own script.

“Freeman was a real bitch to me on the planet today, not only did she bitch and moan about me starting a just and glorious revolution which resulted in a great leap forward for the oppressed, after chewing me out she tacitly agreed with my first assessment by not reversing my uprising.”

“It’s so weird to me that you keep calling her Freeman even now that I know she’s your mother.”

“You knew I was a freak when you married me.” Becket said placing a small love bite on his neck. “Ohh I have an idea your super advanced models and my quality script together ... “

“I’ve already caught 3 plotholes in this thing and honestly this is court martial level stuff if anyone walks in ... “ Brad began his verbal counter-attack.

“Mmmm aren’t you lucky Federation law has special provisions about spouses and testifying against each other ... this is why I want only you in there I can modify the script to really use the fact Freeman is my mom if I don’t have to hide from Tendi and Rutherford.”

“I still don’t think this is a good idea.” Boimler retorted but without much feeling.

“Boims that line has practically been your catchphrase from like the moment we walked out of Martok’s office ... “ Mariner then started to press herself and grind on Boimler lap “ ... but honestly I don’t think you mean it.” she whispered into his ear.

“I still need ugh mhmm an edge, I really want to be in ‘Advanced Diplomacy’ ...”

“Why not try and ask the captain’s daughter about tips and tricks to get into her good graces ?” Beckett offered, her voice a little mocking.

“Because that would be nepotism!!!” Boimler replied indignant not knowing that every time he showed his principles Mariner’s attraction to him spiked, which was followed by an even greater spike in her fetish to corrupt him.

The first maneuver of the attack was some light nibbling on the ear.

Followed by her tightening her embrace of him, so that he could really appreciate how good her breasts felt upon his chest.

Finally the coup de grace:

“I won’t be wearing anything under the ‘Vindicta’ armor.” whispered in a sultry tone.

‘Crisis Point: Rise of Vindicta’ would be coming to holodecks very soon, that much was clear.

* * *

“... Mm these are some really good cookies Boimler, sorry for interrupting you ... are you sure you don’t want at least one ? The caramel and the cinnamon are just a divine combination !” Freeman interrupted the young ensign from his answer to once again praise the home cooked cookies he had brought to the interview.

“No, no captain they’re for you like I said, just a small gesture to get this meeting started in a friendly atmosphere.” Mariner had advised him that it would be optimal to just let her mother eat all the cookies. “And as I was saying I hope that in 5 years I will be at a stage where I can positively contribute to the Bajoran-Cardassian negotiations, although I wish the opposite it is very clear that for the foreseeable future major diplomatic efforts will be needed in ... “

“Ok, yes I understand ... we all know the situation with the Bajorans and the Cardassians now, no need to repeat it to me.” Freeman cut him off.

“In the interest of preserving the atmosphere you tried to build up, I need to inform you that due to the unique ... context ... between us you will receive a -40% penalization to whatever score I will give you at the end of this meeting.”

“-40% that’s huge !! Why ? What did I do ???”

The captain sighed and began to explain her view:

“Ensign, negotiations happen when both sides have something they want from each other ... but very rarely both sides are evenly matched, in a way the fact that I am your captain as I give you this interview is ideal because I can test you in the most arduous scenario i.e. you are negotiating from a position of complete inferiority.”

“That is the case normally, but since you are married to Beckett and know that she is my daughter you are in a unique position. For lt. Jet as an example I am that more stressing opponent with the superior hand and this will impact his performance."

“You on the other hand see me as your respected mother-in-law overflowing with love and affection, you will face much less stress and your performance will be artificially inflated as such.” Freeman ended, all the while keeping a straight face as she declared herself overflowing with affection

“I understand you dilemma and appreciate the desire for fairness ... “ Boimler began his tone carefully neutral, his desire to shove Jet out of an airlock carefully concealed.

“Yet 40% seems rather a big percentage to automatically subtract. Perhaps you are overestimating the damage ‘normal’ levels of stress would do to my performance.”

“Would you really like for me to try and apply more stress to you to even out the familial connection, so as to not subtract that percentage. Do you really think you would do better ?” the captain asked her tone a warning to Bradward that he should choose carefully.

“With all due respect, yes. Please increase the stress whatever way you see fit, I will not falter.” Boimler took up the challenge solemnly.

“Ok, let’s begin ... So when are you and Beckett going to give me some grandkids ?”

"Brad ?"

“Boimler ?”

“Ensign Boimler you stop hyperventilating and or having a heart attack right this second. That’s an order !!!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone is interested, the version of 'Crisis Point: Rise of Vindicta' they ended up doing is slightly different from the canon one
> 
> The characters of Bionic 5 and Tendi The Savage Warrior Queen are not present.
> 
> The fact that Freeman is the mother of the beautiful and cunning marauder Vindicta is not subtext but integrated into the plot, and at the end of the scenario they team up instead of fighting to the death.
> 
> Shempo is not present and neither is the brave Ensign Boimler from the Cerittos crew.
> 
> Instead a new character is introduced, played by Brad:
> 
> Bradrogar Danar
> 
> Genetically engineered soldier and formerly the captain of a unit of similar gene-slave soldiers, he was enhanced to have superior strength, intellect and great hair. Even with all his attributes, he was a slave to the government of his planet having been psychologically conditioned since he was a child to follow any and all rules and protocols no matter how stupid. 
> 
> Fortunately he was sent off once on a mission to capture Vindicta during the long chase they ended up falling in love, Vindicta freed him and managed to break most of his conditioning. He is now part of her crew, her official consort and XO of the Vinpocalypse.


	12. False Gods

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Does it go into your permanent record if you were possessed by an ancient god at the time ?
> 
> This chapter was written for the tumblr prompts for LD December, this is is for the prompt "False Gods".
> 
> Special: Mentions of past Mariner/Ramsey, Ransom/Ramsey, Basically everyone is attracted to everyone

_**Lieutenant Junior Grade Brad Boimler** _

“Sorry for taking you from the Titan lieutenant Boimler, but those papers you wrote in the Academy about the Ventriane culture, you’re the best expert I could find for this mission on such short notice.” Captain Ramsey said as she imputed a flight path into the runabout’s controls.

I wanted to laugh ‘sorry’ yeah this was just the worst day ever for me, getting personally picked by a captain, an attractive dusky skinned prodigy captain at that, to go with her on a mission.

Given the briefing she verbally gave me as we departed the Titan, during which she kept referring to me as ‘lieutenant’ instead of the more exact ‘lieutenant junior grade’, she was absolutely a scholarly prodigy as even with her numerous captain duties she managed to analyze and understand so much of the ancient technology found on Ventriane.

Plus how could she be a captain already ? She looked young enough for me to met in a bar and beautiful enough to get me from ‘too scared to approach’ to ‘heart broken’ in a few randomly intersecting looks.

Still even with this awesome mission, I had a duty to make my colleagues aware of any dangers that might befall us, in this case me not being the expert she was hoping for.

“Ma’am I need to ... “ I began my voice filled with an awkward strain.

“Amina, if it’s comfortable with you Lieutenant Boimler since we will be working closely for this mission I consider that decorum can be relaxed somewhat, for increased ... sinergy among us.”

“Yes capt ... Amina, I need to to point out that my study of the Ventriane was very brief and was strictly focused on a small subset of their artifacts ... What I mean is that in the Academy I was part of the pottery society and Captain Picard was personally trying to get more research commissioned on the Ventriane.”

“I wrote those papers on Ventriane pottery on the hope that he would read them and maybe I could even win a place on the dig he was trying to organize to learn more about the ancient Ventriane.”

“Picard is my hero you see, I wrote those papers yes but I have no particular affinity for the culture and I haven’t kept up with the latest research on them. I didn’t even know I was tagged as a Ventriane scholar in our databases until you called me up.”

She didn’t seem phased at all by my admission, in fact she smiled a little and leaned in from her chair besides mine.

“They are a VERY obscure culture Brad, I wouldn’t have picked you if you weren’t the best choice in my eyes. Yes objectively speaking there is one better expert, but he’s currently busy fist fighting the Borg Queen in the past to ensure that the battle of Alesia is not undone which is a BIT more important than our little mission.”

She paused as if consider something, and then gently placed her hand on my shoulder in a comforting manner.

“So you’re the best I got, keep a stiff upper lip ! I’m not in the habit of leading young officers to their death ... you know ... I wouldn’t have borrowed you from Riker if I didn’t think you got what it takes for this mission.” Amina finished her pep talk and gave me a small wink.

My confidence restored I lasted 3 more hours until my curiosity broke my resolve:

“Permission to ask a question freely ?” I asked sheepishly.

“Permission granted, we still have a few hours until we get to the station.” she said looking up from her PADD, she seemed almost delighted for the conversation on our long trek.

God, how could I phrase this ?

Are you by any chance a member of a near-human species, maybe one that has slowed down aging, thereby reconciling both your captain status and apparent age ?

You know in a manner that won’t make me feel like a total failure for staying more than a year as a ensign.

“Amina, are you a human or ... ?”

“Actually I’m an Anabaj and I want to ... “

She started laughing as I instinctively jumped back.

“Wow, ok chill I’m human. Points for knowing what a Anabaj is, they’re a more obscure species. Why did you ask though ?”

I awkwardly explain how I was curious about her seeming young age and her attainment of the rank of captain.

Her smile visibly falters and her eyes become a little harder, I guess this isn’t the first time some officer made a remark about either her age or her rank.

I am such an absolute tool. Maybe I should just take a shuttle to the Cerittos and let Mariner feed me to an alien like she kept on mentioning. The galaxy would be better of without my idiocy in it.

It seems like she can also read my mind, as her reply is in a carefully neutral tone:

“If you really must know, I am 5 years older than you. We might have even bumped into each other at the academy if you had joined earlier. I am a Captain by rank not acting captain or Commander but I only achieved the rank at the beginning of this year.”

“So I’m still growing into the role myself. Even if I am a withered old crone.” she said the last part about her age in a playful tone.

“Captain, my sincerest apologies. It was not my place to pry into your life or your career. I should have just accepted you are more talented than me, it was a weakness for me to run from the truth that in the time I went from ensign to lieutenant junior grade someone like you could have gone from commander to captain.” I tried to correct for my snooping.

“Brad, it’s not about talent. It’s a harder truth to accept but it’s not just about talent, plenty of smart dedicated wonderful officers by sheer chance never get the opportunity to show their value and take longer to grow in rank.”

“Sometimes you do all the right moves but lose because the game is not winnable, that is life.”

“I had the good fortune to be placed in situations where I could prove myself and rise in rank. Yet and Brad look at me, it’s not just talent and luck ... you can have both and you can fail ... you have to be hard when life throws the Borg or whatever else at you.”

I guess a speech was not the worst thing that could have come out of my faux-pas.

“And that’s just for the early part of your career. You need to lead, in a way it is easier to force yourself to be hard but you need to inspire the men and women at your side. You have to make them hard enough to go through hell and back with you.”

“Not everyone can do it, but WHAT A FEELING it is to know you have a team each as ready as yourself at your back. Are you hard enough Brad ?” she finished her eyes seeming to shine with an inner fire.

“I’m only hard because you make hard Amina!” I practically shout in reply.

Oh god that came out wrong.

Oh god why did I have to use her first name.

* * *

_**Ensign Beckett Mariner** _

I barely suppressed the desire to groan as Ransom was fiddling with the controls of our shuttle manually laying in a flight path which at the end of the day was no better or worse than the course the computer would have selected on it’s own.

At least it kept him occupied and out of my hair for a portion of what would undoubtedly be a a very long flight.

Even as I appreciated his well formed muscles rippling under his uniform while he worked the console, a strange thought came unbidden to my mind, Ransom was in some way an older Boimler.

He probably got his start as a conn officer, just like Boims was on the Cerittos before he betrayed me, hence the obsession with piloting and not understanding that Command was more about leading and inspiring a crew and actually commanding the physical ship was a minute part of the skill set.

What actually sealed the deal was that Ransom was somehow even more obsessed with rank and protocol that Boimler ever was, but to even that out at least ransom was buff very pleasantly buff.

Maybe I could mind game him into using his weights without a shirt on until we got to the starbase.

Oh wouldn’t that be ideal ? Maybe I could even get him to debate with me on protocol and when it is ok to break it.

Get him all hot and bothered, just how I like my uptight rules-obsessed men.

“Something funny ensign ?” oh shit I must have been smiling on the outside.

“Nothing, sir.” I reply with the bare minimum level of decorum I can muster.

“Good.” he replies unironically.

Yep my comparison was totally apt, an older Bradward. When did Jack finish the Academy ? I can swear Amina told me once as her older brother was his best friend or something.

Christ, he pulled out a vanity mirror and was now checking his beard ? Forget getting him with his shirt off, a better use of my time would be praying the other team members were half-way tolerable.

After a couple of hours pass my boredom defeats me and in need of reading material I go again through the mission documents.

Of course they’re organized like shit, Jack is one of those commanders who thinks the lower decks officers have their entire days free to just keep on refreshing the mission ticket and read all the message threads linked to it.

You know instead of KEEPING THE GODDAMN MISSION DETAILS SHORT, UP TO DATE, STRUCTURED AND FOCUSED LIKE GOOD ORDERS SHOULD BE.

The crew list for the mission was updated in one of the threads since the last time I read it and holy shit Amina was added to the mission and given overall command ??

“Jack, pass me that mirror !” I say as warning as I grab it to check my hair.

Crap why did I go with the boring lip gloss today ?

“Heh looks like somebody finally read the full updated mission.” Ransom teased, apparently having deduced why I suddenly cared a lot more about my appearance.

Oh screw you, there’s a minimum standard you must strive for when you meet your ex even if a hook-up isn’t what I want from her.

“Mariner this isn’t some fun four-way picnic, we’ve been assigned on this mission because we have the necessary skills, those scholars might get in too over their heads that’s why we’re their bodyguards and muscle.” Ransom reminded me as if I was on my first mission outside of the Academy.

To prove my experience which made such warnings unwarranted, I quickly stuck out my tongue at him while he’s looking at the sensor readings.

I think he caught it though since I hear him grumble something suspiciously similar to ‘captain’s daughter’ under his breadth.

“When you mean scholars ?” I ask now the mission seeming much more interesting.

“Captain Ramsey will be our tech nerd for the mission as she’s studied what Star Fleet knows about Ventriane engineering and their scientific accomplishment. Amina also messaged me that she was able to track down a cultural expert for the mission to give us the xeno-anthropological context. So 2 nerds in total.”

“You know for all the ‘nerd’ talk I couldn’t help but notice you trying to get into her pants for the longest time.” I point out.

Ransom just gave a seemingly good heart-ed laugh.

“Off the record ... besides her numerous other qualities, intelligence is sexy can you blame me ? I noticed we share this common taste.”

“Yeah me and Amina were a thing back in the final years at the Academy ... not that I wanted to bring it up.” I couldn’t help but gloat.

The fool has gotten himself in the position that I could rub that in his face the whole rest of the trip.

“I meant you and her but also you and Boimler, he was also quite nerdy.” Jack said seemingly off-hand while inspecting the engine readings on the console.

* * *

_**Commander Jack Ransom** _

It was a small galaxy after all, I couldn’t help but think as Lt. Boimler was apparently the best cultural expert Amina could find in such short order.

He was handling himself pretty well giving Mariner and myself a layman’s presentation of his and the captain’s findings in order for us to have the proper context.

_“Archaeological data as well as diplomatic data from the neighboring civilizations that interacted with them at the time and are still active on the galactic stage all show the Ventriane as a star-faring civilization with respectable technology and a culturally vibrant local power.”_

To put his presentational skills in context though. it needed to be said he was speaking under Mariner’s unrelenting baleful glare. That would affect even a Vulcan.

_“With hindsight we can determine that their fatal decision was not to colonize any of the planets within their reach, this combined with a class A planetary climate catastrophe meant that their civilization could not continue as they knew it.”_

Still Mariner would just need to grow up and act like an officer, sometimes you need to work with old lovers.

I don’t understand how she can be perfectly fine working with Ramsey, but Boimler is such a issue. Especially given that she literally spent hours on the shuttle ride here insisting they were never a couple.

_“Small pockets of the Ventriane people have thankfully survived and are now currently rebuilding, but for them their past achievements are literally the stuff of legends and myths. They thus fall under sub-section 35-a of the Prime Directive, we are allowed to intervene for their safety but only by executing the minimum possible missions and by avoiding cultural contamination at all costs.”_

With all things considered though, insubordination, romantic woes, being the captain’s daughter, Freeman confirming my decision to transfer Boimler to the Titan, Mariner was an immensely talented member of Star Fleet who was known to get serious during missions.

Boimler now gave the floor to Amina who continued with the more engineering rather than cultural aspects of the mission.

_“Which is exactly what is happening, ancient defense platforms have begun acting dangerously chaotic, while eliminating them is certainly possible as far as we can tell their absence will certainly be noticed by the modern Ventriane. And perhaps more importantly we cannot be certain that destroying them won’t release radioactive debris upon the planet.”_

Beckett would stay on the mission but I would talk with Amina to change the plan slightly and I would tag along with them instead of remaining at the shuttle, this suggestion was my mind for some time anyway.

_“Our theory is that we can basically remotely fix the platforms if we gain access to their control center, which is now viewed as an ancient temple and resting place for the most honored dead. This is why we have all gathered here, what is needed is a small elite team which will infiltrate the temple without the locals noticing and figure out how to use the original control mechanism to get the defense platforms back to a stable and safe state.”_

I was actively trying not to see Mariner as the captain’s daughter but more like an experienced ensign that maybe was not challenged in the way she needed to be, but still the questions lingered on my mind even as I absorbed Ramsey’s explanations:

Why didn’t Mariner if she was so into Boimler didn’t do anything to keep him on the Cerittos ?

How can Boimler be so unfazed about the fact that his ex or his former friend with benefits is so obviously not over him ?

_“As we will be interacting with their ancient technology and as Bradward mentioned the living Ventriane have no cultural differentiation whatsoever between ‘advanced tech user’ and ‘god’ it is IMPERATIVE we execute our mission without adding any more legends or false gods into their society.”_

Ok now to make my move, pretend I don’t understand what flight path I need to take so Amina needs to explain it again it that sexy, sexy accent of hers.

“Excuse me, Captain Ramsey could you elaborate more on the maneuvers I will need to execute to get us into the command center while avoiding all the religious settlements that have sprung up on top of it ?”

_“Of course, **I need you Jack** to ... “_

I could just sit here and listen to her for hours.

* * *

  
_**Captain Amina Ramsey** _

The mission had been going better than expected, we made speedy progress through the command center/temple with Beckett and Jack leading the way and dispatching all sort of automated guardians droids in melee while I and Boimler provided them support fire with our phasers.

Traps were handled by Boimler’s knowledge of the local’s art and mythology combined with Mariner’s practical experience with all kinds of alien deathtraps.

Myself and Jack handled the general navigation and strategy level decisions and working closely as a pair we managed the not-so-easy feat of keeping Mariner from rushing ahead or trying to do everything on her own.

Plus I was honestly extremely happy I agreed with Ransom’s suggestion for him to join us, not only did his taut muscles prove aesthetically pleasing when he engaged his foes in hand to hand but more importantly he was vitally useful in helping me run interference between Beckett and Bradward.

Honestly what had gotten into Beckett ? She was behaving like a sullen schoolgirl who has an assignment with her ex-boyfriend.

Thankfully as mentioned we could keep the junior officers pointed on target, and we were now in the grand central command chamber.

“These “ I said pointing to what appeared to be two large ornate helmets with facemasks built into them “ are actually a type of advanced neural interface into the central computer. I’ve barely managed to re-configure them to accept human users but there are still a lot of risks and limitations.”

“The helmet-interfaces were initially owned by two of the commanders or leaders from their golden age.” Boimler entered the conversation even as he was busy scanning the writings that littered the walls “They were named Lyra and Arobous, while they were ... maybe the equivalent of a queen and a king, a couple leading the planet ... the current inhabitants have morphed the truth about them until now they are seen as king and queens of the gods.”

I continued with explaining why this was important:

“From what I can tell the devices since they link organic minds would work best on a user who fits the profile of the original, I wouldn’t risk modifying them more than I have and we’re lucky that they can work with humans at all ... so hard rule: only a woman can wear the queen mask and only a man the king mask.”

“Oh come onnnn” Beckett voiced her displeasure “you’re telling me their species conveniently has the same biological sexes as we do ? Cliche much ?”

“Look I’m not here to debate xeno-biology and what are the odds ... We need to access those platforms in orbit, these helmets will allow the wearers to link with their systems and do just that by channeling the knowledge and persona of the original users.” I replied.

“And just speaking for myself, I’m happy we have a straightforward solution at hand due to captain Ramsey’s efforts and some luck. I’d rather our team have a boring and non-lethal mission than a HIGH CONCEPT ADVENTURE.” Ransom jumped to support me looking Beckett in the eye as he offered his rebuttal.

“Point is two of us will wear these and do the re-calibration of the platform now as the commanding ... “ I didn’t even need to finish my sentence everyone had their hand up offering.

Jack was offering himself since alongside me he was the senior officer and felt it was his duty to take on the risk.

Beckett was offering herself because even at her moodiest she never would hesitate and allow her friends or fellow officers to risk themselves.

Bradward as far as I could tell from our brief time together while he seemed more subdued and protocol aware he had the true Star Fleet spirit of an explorer and protector.

Plus he was surely thinking it would look good on his record, the man spent so much energy on our trip here kissing my but it almost started to feel good in a sexual way.

“Amin ... captain could I please have a word with you in private ?” Mariner asked as she saw where this four persons two helmets situation was going.

I nodded and gave Ransom the look, he understood since we had discussed such an eventuality possibly coming up, so he took Boimler aside to talk to him while I handled Mariner.

“Look I’m not trying to be a pain in the ass, I understand this is serious so I’m asking again: can’t you further modify the helmets so I and you could use them ?”

I can’t help but roll my eyes even if it’s not beahviour befitting of a captain, still got to work on it I guess.

“Oh yes ... now that you’ve demanded it again the solution is SO OBVIOUS and RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME ... that was sarcasm if you couldn’t tell ... No ! You asking me the second time has not made the ancient and alien and dangerous technology shift it’s nature in the last 5 minutes.”

“Can’t it be done by one person wearing one helmet but it taking longer ?”

“No, both sets of helmets or rather the persona-accesses they link to are needed.”

“You are 100% sure I can’t wear the queen helmet than switch it out for the king helmet and do it like that ?” Beckett persisted with her theorizing.

“I am more than sure in that scenario your brain will be permanently fried, Mariner we’re talking about something that even in the ideal scenario comes with risks of losing your personality in the psyhic melding ... why are you so intent on asking about these scenarios ?”

“It just seems ... you know it seems convenient that Ransom HAS to be part of the solution alongside me.” she said her eyes shifting to where Jack and Bradward were having a seemingly more smooth conversation.

I didn’t correct her on her assumptions yet.

“So you oppose Ransom being involved ?” I wanted to get more of a feel of what her angle was.

“I don’t know the tech ... like you pointed out but I know Ransom he will risk himself for the team but he also has his ambition I’m just saying maybe he nudged you to considering the scenarios where he plays a big part as the only ones that should be pursued.”

“I’m asking you to trust me that I’d notice if he were trying to influence me. Also maybe you should look towards yourself, maybe you yourself with the best of intentions are discounting scenarios were you aren’t the one taking point.”

“Uhhhm ... no that can't be it ... “ Beckett, Beckett I know your heart is in the right place but please be a bit more self aware if I leave it up to you we would be stuck here until you found how to do absolutely everything risky.

And it was getting tiresome.

“... did I tell you about the incident with the battle blade ?”

“No.” I replied as I fiddled with my back pocket.

“Something similar to this actually, I was debating with Ransom about who should risk himself in a fight and the sneaky bastard sneak attacked me with the blade ... non lethal of course ... because he thought as the senior officer he should risk his life in the duel.”

“Wow really ... like I can sort of see both your points ... but stabbing you ... how barbaric. A much better alternative would have been a hypo spray prepared for just these ‘Mariner is being idiotically brave and self sacrificing‘ situations.”

“A wha .. “ I got her with the spray before she could finish her question.

* * *

_**Ensign Beckett Mariner** _

The room was bright as I opened my eyes, my night’s sleep had not been good and I saw some guy standing over me, a lovesick puppy expression on his face.

Great Mariner you really know how to pick your one night stands.

Wait, that was Boims !

We are still in the command center down on Ventriane Prime, in a little alcove which was separated from the main room by a locked gate with bars.

“They got you too ?” I asked for the first time speaking to him without venom in my tone.

I still could not believe Amina would do a punk move like ambushing me with a hypo spray.

Luckily I could see the entire main room through the bars, Ransom and Ramsey were already wearing the masks and they were simply flying from one console to each other pulling switches, calibrating ancient machines etc.

It was clear their movements were not their own, they were too synced to each other, not needing words but only looks to collaborate.

In a way they were more like a couple dancing than two technicians fixing some satellites.

I looked Boimler over, even touching his face delicately to turn his face to both sides checking for any hits.

I guess Amina must have brought a hypo for him too, else Ransom would have clobbered him unconscious, the big gorilla that he was.

It was weird to see Brad flinch a little as I inspected his face, it was also uncomfortable to realize so much time had passed since I last touched him.

“Ahem, you know how much time I’ve been out ?” I ask to divert my thoughts to something else.

“An hour approximately, they’ve been working those machines non stop since putting on the helmets, I’m not sure but I think they’re doing good progress they only stop for ... “

“I am Lyra, The Queen That Raises The Sun,The Destroyer Of Sickness, She Who Must Be Obeyed !!!” Ramsey shouted at the top of her lungs as her eyes glowed a bright orange.

“I am Arobous, The Eternal Law, The Guardian On The Throne, Commander Of All Hosts !!!” Ransom replied immediately even louder, with his eyes glowing a cold blue.

“Well for that ... they do that at regular intervals ... it’s actually a fascinating look into a long dead culture and proves a lot from what ... ... to be honest were interpretations I couldn’t be completely sure of.” Boims admitted

“Everything else is nominal ?” I couldn’t help but ask, these were my friends being hooked-up into ancient barely known technology.

“Their life signs are good, they haven’t tried to smite me to prove their power ... “ I knew this was Boimler’s placating tone he was trying to soften the blow I glared at him until he got to the point “it’s just that they seem to be having more contact than required more and more as time passes.”

That did not sound innocent at all, I watched them and soon enough I noticed it as well Ramsey leaning on Ramsom when she didn’t need to, a touch that lingered too long.

Also now they were french kissing each other as they waited for some machine to complete it’s cycle.

"Now they're kissing ??? They can't do that ... shoot them ... or something." I couldn’t help but speak out loud dumbfunded as I pointed this out to Boimler hoping he could stun them with his phaser.

“Wait, why didn’t they take your phaser when they incapacitated you ?”

“They didn’t need to incapacitate me, Ramsey is the officer in command, Ransom is a commander and her second on this mission if they decided to wear the helmets I’m NOT going to mutiny just because I think I could do the job better.”

“I was actually ordered to guard you.” Boimler admitted at the end.

“You were in this cell with me when I woke up ! Guarding is supposed to be done from the outside you dork.” I raise my voice at him.

“I-- uh you kept turning over in your sleep and falling on the floor, I came in here so that you didn’t hurt yourself accidentally.” Brad said his voice going lower and turning his eyes from me at the end.

That was sort of sweet.

“You are the worst guard !” I say but I also playfully punch his arm. And he takes it like before, no flinching at the contact.

“So are you going to stop me from doing the right thing now ?” I had to know.

“Oh get off your high horse Beckett, we have rules for a reason, we have the chain of command for a reason. I accept you have way more real missions under your belt than me but Ramsey and Ransom also do, I can’t just go along with what YOU want all the time ... Ifif there was rule that states that we should act ... maybe, I’m open to hearing it.”

Same old Bradward, he’s smart enough to know something has gone wrong but he needs the re-assurance of some protocol before he acts.

“Look there will never be a regulation about what to do when your friends ... ok Amina’s a friend Jack is more like a pest we work with ... are being possessed by alien gods and forced to have sex with each other !!! You either accept you have to think for yourself or you take off that uniform because you don’t deserve it.“

Actually there was a bunch of rules about Star Fleet officers getting possessed by god-like beings but they were pretty generic and open to interpretation and not one of them dealt with the current copulation conundrum we were facing.

Brad’s face was clearly showing he was torn between my arguments and Amina’s standing orders, he was in fact doing that cute thing he does when he’s trying to concentrate and biting his lip.

Behind me from the sounds of it, Ramsey and Ransom were making my case that they were indeed compromised by the helmets.

I turned around, oh boy Amina was satisfying her curiosity about Ransom’s “photon torpedo”, the question she asked me when she was babysitter captain for the ship a few months ago, and knowing Amina a lot more satisfaction was sure to follow.

Maybe I could watch some more ... just to be sure than an intervention was required.

“Ok, let’s do this, they’re clearly not themselves right now.” lt buzzkill finally made up his mind.

We exited the cell in a stealthy manner and fell upon them from behind as Ransom was getting a reach around.

It seems false gods are real easy to bonk on the head when they’re distracted.

After making sure that neither Amina or Jack were seriously injured, we set them aside confident they would wake up naturally on their own with time.

Boimler and I stood facing each other the godly masks in our hands.

“You have any idea how this is going ? I hope we didn’t stop any process when we knocked them out.” I asked.

“I barely have any idea how the tech works, that was Amina’s part and she really struggled with it ... but these things didn’t start affecting them until near the one hour mark. Let’s pray we can finish stabilizing the platforms during that time.” Brad responded as he kept turning over the helmet in his hands eyeing the inscriptions.

I gave him a smile and a wink, and he responded in kind, there was some hesitation in there but there was hell of a lot more courage. I couldn’t think of any other man I would rather be doing this with.

“I am Lyra, The Queen That Wields The Spear,The Lighter Of the Torch, She Who Must Is First In All !!!” I could hear my voice saying.

“I am Arobous, The King That Stalks The Moon, The Eternal Watcher, He Who Rules !!!” Brad replied as soon as he had the mask on.

* * *

_**Captain Jean Luc Picard** _

“And afterwards as far as we can tell from the sensors your group had set up to record the process before any of you donned the masks, ensign Mariner and lieutenant Boimler proceeded to copulate with full .. force and vigor .. as you both reached the limits of your stamina captain Ramsey and commander Ransom were waking up. That was the moment the away team from the Enterprise found you all.”

I finished informing the officers of what the report my crew had made of their little expedition contained.

It was good to see Mariner again, always a delight to see a child of the Enterprise who had gone on and joined the service herself. Her mother especially must be proud of her daughter. Not of this mission certainly but in general. Although this mission will make for amusing small-talk when she and her husband invites me and Beverly over.

I think Mariner knew what was coming given the way she was awkwardly rubbing the back of her neck.

Alongside her, torn between looking at her and keeping his gaze on me as the ranking officer in the room, was lieutenant jr grade Boimler.

A memory came back of a certain student at the Academy named Boimler being the only one who bothered to send in a paper, one focused entirely on pottery, when I called for participation in scholarly research of the Ventriane.

I honestly don’t understand what he could be so anxious about, indeed I did need to read them a little of the riot but he got to be the expert on a fascinating mission and got the excuse to take quite the lover in Beckett.

Similarly trying to maintain his sense of decorum was commander Ransom, I must admit I didn’t know much of the man but Will and Deanna I think mentioned him in a favorable light once. Captain Ramsey certainly seemed to approve.

Speaking of her, the young captain took it upon herself to speak for the group about their escapades:

“I realize, the events of the mission a lot ... a lot “ she gave Ransom a look “ happened which we did not plan for, but I just want to say to the members of this team, tough our methods were unconventional we did manage to stabilize the platforms and our raid into the temples seemed to have gone unnoticed.”

“I take it then as the commanding officer you will not initiate any disciplinary actions against lt Boimler and ensign Mariner ?” I needed to formally ask although I agreed that no actions were required.

“No, I think we can accept that we were all on the field, it was an unconventional situation thus the stress made some of us react maybe a bit too harshly but ultimately with the best interests of the team in mind.” captain Ramsey responded trying to strike a balance between reconciliation and not letting them completely of the hook.

“Hell yess we were right, without me and Boimler you two would never have gotten to fixing the platforms.” Mariner boasted.

Oh Mariner, a little humility is a lesson always worth learning.

“Actually you and lt Boimler didn’t help at all ... our drone scans from orbit show the platforms were stabilized circa 40 minutes after captain Ramsey and commander Ransom started their work ... as far as my experts on the ship can tell your intervention merely stopped their congratulatory lovemaking and once you two put the masks on you did not interact with the platforms at all merely with each other.”

“Accctuall--yy Captain Picard sir, I think for all our records it’s important to draw a distinction between our actions and what we-- did with the masks on “ Boimler argues while Mariner nods along “we weren’t doing it, the psych profile of the ancient rulers who were consorts overrode our ...”

“Lt. Boimler I’m sorry but I need to stop you, you did admirable work as the sole cultural expert on the team but you made one error with your translation Arobous and Lyra were not lovers, they were co-heads of state and they were a man and a woman but they were not romantically involved.”

Boimler and Ramsey’s eyes begin to twich at the implication of what I revealed.

“Wait so if the ancient ‘gods’ didn’t influence us to do it then why ?” Ransom asked.

“Oh, how this spring of love resembleth, The uncertain glory of an April day, Which now shows all beauty of the Sun, And by and by a cloud takes all away ...” I could only quote Shakespeare in reply to their questioning stares.

* * *

On the next episode, are you sure you are on the right ship ? Better double check, lest you spend 7 years lost in the Delta Quadrant.

_**Chapter X: The Wrong Ship** _

“Mariner, we won’t survive here in unknown space as two crews, I’m willing to take you in, you and all your men ... we’ll forget all the politics that divided us back in the Federation. I’ll make you XO but I need to know I can trust you. I need to know if we can work side by side ? The only way back home is if we work closely together ...”

“Oh Boims I think you’ll see ... “ she leaned into his personal space never taking her eyes off from his, until their breadth almost mingled “I have no concept of personal space.”

...

“Wow really, I mean I’ve broken a hell of a lot of rules ...”

“Believe me I KNOW.“ Mariner responded to her younger self.

“But breaking the Temporal Prime Directive, some serious shit must have happened in the future, to warrant this.”

“Trust me, I’m only doing what’s right and preventing a great injustice.” the older Beckett replied looking at the Borg.


	13. Short: A Charlie Brown Christmas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rutherford wants to show Tendi the traditions of Christmas especially mistletoe, Mariner and Boimler cosplay as characters from 'Peanuts'.
> 
> Special: Contains Rutherford/Tendi

The doors to the holodeck slid open to reveal Beckett and Brad both already in costume, they entered to find Rutherford busy tapping away at a console making the last modifications to their program.

They knew they were here to help Tendi learn the true meaning of Christmas.

Even more importantly they knew they were there to help their science and engineering friends to finally get on with it and hookup.

“What I don’t understand is why we have to all be dressed like characters from ‘Peanuts’ ?” Boimler whined.

Beckett secretly agreed but she was glad that somebody else said it and she wouldn’t have to be the killjoy for Rutherford.

“Sigh because `A Charlie Brown Christmas` is the only Christmas program I could get to run here and I wasn’t going to model all of the assets from 0 since Tendi asked us what Christmas was about last night at the bar ... also congrats on picking Charlie.” Rutherford said eyeing Boimler’s chosen yellow and black sweater.

“I would have bet on Mariner insisting she be the main character.” the engineer noted with a small dose of sarcasm before returning to his code.

“Well if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck ... but I decided to give Boims the spotlight ... for one episode only you hear.” Beckett ended her sentence by grabbing Bradward around the shoulders and closing in while looking him in the eyes.

“So that’s why you picked the ‘Lucy’ costume ?” came one final question from Sam.

“No, I admit I didn’t read the homework just chose something that looked nice ... oh god ... please don’t tell me it’s Halloween all over again ?”

Boimler started rubbing his temples as he remembered the costume party incident again.

“Good grief ! No ! Charlie and Lucy aren’t a couple ... we’re not in a couple costume accidentally ... again.” he noted as he fished out a small booklet from his back-pocket and passed it to Mariner with the page for the ‘Lucy’ character open.

“Are you sure they aren’t a couple ?” Mariner gave a suspicious look around “You know how people are they see relationships between any 2 characters especially with a series as popular and long lived as this.” she asked as she read from the booklet.

“Yes ... And you know if I was more thin skinned I would have been offended at how scared you are about the couple costume thing ... not that I want people to think that.“ Boimler retorted but at the end he was avoiding Mariner’s gaze.

“Fuck you” Beckett replied but in a more playful tone “You were not the one who had to bear the ‘How’s your boyfriend, ensign Boimler doing ?’ mocking from the captain every time you bumped into her on the hall FOR 3 STRAIGHT WEEKS.”

“Guys shut up Tendi will be here in a couple of minutes, let me explain what I’ve rigged up. You know about the ‘kissing under the mistletoe’ tradition well good news orions and humans have mostly the same biological markers for love ... ”

“Biological markers ... “ Brad repeated with some heavy disbelief.

“ ... for love ?” and Beckett finished his sentence echoing the same sentiment.

“Yes heightened pulse, sweating, dilated pupils, certain chemicals get released into your bloodstream well I’ve setup the holodeck to monitor for all of these in us and if 2 people are in close distance and a sufficient number of markers are detected the holodeck will “randomly” materialize a mistletoe above us.”

“It’s perfect the mistletoe if it appears will be a sign I’m not reading things that aren’t there and I can make a move without endangering our friendship because she doesn’t like me. I can try and romance her without going too far if she's not comfortable.” Rutherford finished obviously proud of his solution.

His command division friends both felt like this was leading to a hard lesson about how not everything can be solved with technology but hope that Tendi and Sam could be happy together kept their lips sealed.

“Ok so when she comes I just have one thing to ask you guys do your thing and give us a bit of space ok ?”

“Our thing ?” Mariner cocked an eyebrow.

“Yeah don’t tell me you haven’t noticed how you guys always end up paired off and going on a separate adventure or learning a lesson and leave me in Tendi to our own business. That all that I need you to do.”

Beckett and Bradward looked at each other, both silently and wordlessly agreeing that Rutherford was talking bullshit.

It wasn’t like they spent most of their days together, working, talking, bickering or that they somehow ended up always saving each other from various perils.

They both telepathically concluded Rutherford was only seeing what he wanted to see.

Tendi had arrived and her squeal of pleasure at the program was one that would go down into the Cerittos’s sensor logs.

...

“You think they have a chance ?”

“I think you need to get laid and soon you’re starting to turn into my mom with her obsession about other people’s romantic lives. Here kick this football.”

Boimler gave her a dirty look, it was very efficient it encompassed his displeasure with the him needing sex quip, the comparison with her mother (a woman that Beckett had many, many little stories about, it got to the point Brad could almost say he knew the woman despite not even knowing the name of Ms. Mariner) and the attempt to trick him.

“No, and you really think I would fall for that ? I gave you the booklet Mariner !”

“Exactly ... would I be so un-inventive to literally steal the joke from the comic strip ? What do I pride myself on ? Don’t even try, ‘out of the box thinking’ is the answer”.

Boimler took a subtle look over to Rutherford and Tendi, they were walking together thick as thieves Sam pointing to different things in the simulation and explaining while D’Vana clung to his every word.

He wanted to believe that this was a good sign, but they usually acted this way so he couldn’t tell.

The best thing Boimler thought was to give them space and let things evolve naturally, Mariner was probably thinking the same hence her literally inviting him to play a game with her.

“Promise you won’t take it away right before I kick ?” Brad demanded even if he knew he was sounding and was being childish.

“Promise. ” Mariner said looking him in the eye while employing a sweet tone.

“Now what more do you need ? Do you want me to dress like those ... those girls you have at Earth highschools the ‘cheerleaders’ ... and do a whole song and dance number before you show me ... how much of a man you are ... and kick this ball ?”

Brad’s imagination went into warp 10 and conjured up the image of Beckett in one of those uniforms with the short skirts and tight tops, her jumping and gyrating while chanting his name.

That was very distracting, to say the least. He prepared to try a kick if only to stop more of these thoughts and emotions from bubbling up.

To her credit Mariner held the ball perfectly for a kickoff until the very last millisecond where Boimler’s foot would have connected.

The sudden disappearance, combined with Brad not really having played the sport, combined with the fact that they were on snow, meant that Boimler’s slip was sort of inevitable and that was how he ended up on his back on the ground.

Beckett took advantage and shamelessly, leaned on him he face directly above him her elbows resting on his chest keeping him pinned to the earth.

“Oh man ... I can’t believe you fell for that.” she said snickering.

“Yeah, I was quite the idiot in taking you at your WORD that you wouldn’t prank me.” came the reply with both sarcasm and an undercurrent of actual bitterness.

“Not a prank Boims ... a lesson.”

“What’s the lesson ? Stop hanging out with dicks ?”

The shadow of worry flashed on Mariner’s face, maybe she had gone too far, maybe he was right.

“It was actually about being careful what you want, consider the ball your promotion ... you kick it you get what you want, but then you have to follow it ... you have to leave your friends behind and go to your new position.” Beckett finally replied.

“You guys know me, I never tried to hide what I want out of life, if me wanting a career is that bad would you be spending time with me ?” Brad replied albeit with doubt clearly present in his voice.

“MaybeI we see more in you or else we wouldn’t have let you get this close, would you really leave Rutherford and Tendi here just to chase a new pip ?”

At the moment Boimler understood, it was the fact that she didn’t name herself which clued him in on the less than obvious meaning.

“Beckett you’ll find someone else ... “ he hastily added when he realized what it sounded like“ ... to haze I mean.”

Mariner looked at him but she refused to speak forcing Boimler to continue.

“You’re awesome and have been on so many ships surely I wouldn’t be the first time ... we would both still be in Star Fleet ... come on don’t tell me I’d break your heart if I got promoted to the Sacramento or something !”

“Wow wow lover boy ... who said anything about broken hearts ... I’m talking righteous anger at being betrayed.”

Somehow the energy with which she wanted to squash the broken heart analogy, despite him not wanting to say it that way pushed Brad into being defensive again.

“As if you wouldn’t do it, like say Freeman made you a lieutenant again and a move to another ship was the only way back to being an ensign, you’d leave me behind no problem.”

After the words came out, he realized Beckett had the complete tactical advantage having him pinned, but for the moment Mariner was just giving him a dirty look as if she couldn’t justify to herself to verbally deny his claim.

So there they stayed as the seconds marched on, one resting on the other, their eyes locked, the emotions of before of betrayal, of not being understood, of tempting and being tempted churning through both Mariner and Boimler.

Too proud each of them to concede but too alive from each other’s provocation to just walk away.

“Hey guys, you have one of those mistletoe things above you as well !!” Tendi’s voice was the first reminder that the world still existed outside of themselves.

“Whywhy aren’t they kissing ?” she continued “Sam were you lying to me about the kissing tradition ... like it was all a prank on me ?” Tendi asked the last part with growing dread in her voice.

It would all end in heartbreak and disappointment, if Tendi thought it was a prank.

There was only one thing that could save the night.

I’ll just do it and it will annoy him/her, they deserve it for all they said.

It’s not like I’ll like it or he/she will like the kiss.

Those were the thoughts in both Beckett and Brad’s minds as they locked lips in the snow.


	14. Short: A captain goes down with her ship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Boimler has the worst timing in trying out new things, like disobeying orders for example.

“All hands to escape pods ! Prepare to abandon ship !” Mariner ordered.

The situation seemed truly dire, we had barely defeated the first Packled vessel and now we were facing down three, Mariner was really out of options neither her sense of duty or her pride would have allowed her to give up if there was even the slightest chance. 

We make our way off the bridge in respectful silence, as Beckett stays in the captain’s chair focused on what little information she was still getting about the state of the ship.

No one really notices me as I fall behind then backtrack to the bridge.

I have my phaser already drawn as I try to will my hands into being steady, once the door slides open Mariner will probably assume I’m another Packled boarding party, so I’ll have only a split second for the shot.

She’s been in combat just before this, her system is both excited as well as fueled by adrenaline and other hormones and at the same time trying to heal her numerous wounds.

Choosing a stun setting is always difficult, even with a known species like a human, Beckett is sturdier than most, but she’s also weakened as noted, after I drag her to an escape pod I will have either time to plot in an automated course or maybe run back and complete whatever kamikaze plan she is hatching up.

Uhh it will be better if she flies the pod herself so I got to time it so that she comes out of it after the pod is ejected but as soon as possible.

Lowest stun setting it is then.

The door slides open, but she hasn’t turned yet.

Can’t aim for her head, it would be optimal for stun length but given her battle wounds I could also trigger all kinds of permanent damage.

By the time she’s giving me a “deer in the headlights” look I’ve already gotten a mark on her torso and fired the beam.

God why did you have to make this woman so attractive when combative but also so beautiful her guard is down and her innocence shines through ?

I take a few crucial moments to sit in the captain’s chair and use it’s console to review the escape pods, there are still nine left.

Also Beckett, not that I’ll ever get the chance to tell you this but the “no eating after eight” thing you could still stand to lose a few pounds your unconscious body is surprisingly heavy to haul off the deck. 

No that it matters, I’m almost at the door when you’re already awake and you grab the phaser from my belt throwing it to the other side of the deck.

One judo throw later, you’re on me and have me in some kind of lock. The fact that you can snap my neck right now does not make you any less beautiful, but I really would have liked to look deep into your eyes when said eyes were not aflame with rage.

“What the hell, idiot ???” is a very good question.

On this frontier you never know, maybe the Packleds found a way to mind control me, maybe I sold out, maybe I’m an alien agent just pretending to be Boimler.

Or maybe all the stress of today has just made me crack and I’m no longer sane.

Yes, that seems the most reasonable take.

“I learned you were Freeman’s daughter because I went back and continued the simulation ... “ the look she gives me is one of pure contempt for me bringing up such trivialities now.

“... there the simulated you stayed on the ship as everyone escaped and you sacrificed yourself to blow up the enemy to make sure we got out.” she instantly changes expressions to that of a young girl caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

“Captain goes down with the ship, ancient tradition of the sea you idiot ... “ she finally says a lot more softly “ ... do you really think the Packleds will let the pods with our friends get away ? Somebody has to blow the warp core or something to keep the distracted or even better yet kill them if possible.”

“And that someone will be me.” I say plainly.

“God, you chose now of all moments to disobey orders ? ... I DON’T HAVE TIME to both drag your skinny ass to a pod and shove you inside and rig something up for the Packleds.”

I don’t say a word but she can tell I’m still set on my plan, even if with my phaser out of reach and her pinning me down there is a 0% chance of implementing it.

“Uhh I forgive you ok ? For blowing the cover on my secret, for fighting over the promotion ... “ this is the first time I ever saw Beckett trying to bargain she must really be desperate “ for everything ... is it ok ? Is your conscience cleared ? You have zero reasons to stay here and die !”

She thinks she has me pinned but I actually have her exactly where I want her.

With strength born out of desperation I lunge upwards and our lips connect.

It might be my imagination but I can sense the change in her, from surprise to understanding to reciprocation.

They are the sweetest moment, were we are just kissing our tongues exploring each other, our breadths mingling.

To my great shame she is the one who comes to her senses first.

“No, no, ... uhh you know what I mean ... if it were any other time ... well honestly if it were any other time we’d be too wrapped up in our own bullshit ... but this REALLY is the worst time, even if I want it. Can’t you just run to a pod and honor my memory by living a long happy life ?”

I usually consider myself at least adequate with words, indeed I rarely miss an opportunity to try and prove my eloquence. 

But now I just land another kiss on Beckett’s lips and she eventually releases me from the pin.

“Ok idiot, lover’s suicide pact it is then ...”

We get back up, she takes the captain’s chair again as I slid into Ransom’s chair.

Nothing about this is normal, our duty is to keep the ship safe not to try and get it to explode while timing it so that the escape pods have a chance to escape.

So the conversation is terse as there are so many options, Beckett laments that she sent off an unofficial SOS call to one of her smuggler friends and he didn’t show up.

I wanted to point out that no smuggler ship could stand a chance to the 3 warship equivalents we were facing, but I just continue to scan the data about the ship status and try to feed power to the shuttle bay auto-repair systems.

Time is short.

Rigging up all the available shuttles to fly out and dump their warp core is a very complicated twenty four step process.

In the gaps between the steps, kissing is a much better use of our time.

We are in the gap between stage ten and eleven of the process.

I found my way into the captain’s chair Mariner found her way into my lap and her shirt found it's way to the floor.

Hopefully between stage fourteen and sixteen I will have found a way to unhook her bra.

That’s when the speaker announce an incoming friendly vessel, normally I’d be looking at the screen to identify it but Beckett’s lips are simply more important at the moment.

“A Packled party ? And I wasn’t invited ?” the other captain’s voice is both familiar and supremely annoying, I can tell Mariner is as conflicted as myself about breaking our kiss to observe our rescue “Hey what are you two ensigns doing ? Making out during a battle ? Oh captain Freeman will hear about this hehe ... ”

We were saved ... yayy ?


	15. The wrong ship Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Basically the plot of Voyager but with LD characters.
> 
> A very good and short introduction to the Maquis and why they are being hunted by Starfleet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bFrGsBmK18
> 
> Special: AU, Tendi/Rutherford

“First Officer’s Log, Stardate 48315.6,

The USS.Sentry has been hunting the Maquis vessel Fraternité for months in the Badlands and the situation has finally come to an climax.

The Fraternité is an unique ship and crew among the Maquis, she is an old decommissioned Miranda class, Beckett Mariner her captain was once hailed as a prodigy among Star Fleet’s ranks despite her young age she managed to accrue quite the number of victories in the face of overwhelming odds, she was respected and admired by all that knew of her.

That is until she decided to resign her commission for ‘moral and ethical reasons’ and immediately joined the Maquis, where she became one of their most infamous captains joining the ranks of such traitors as Chakotay and Eddington.

On paper our ship the USS.Sentry as a Nebula class should easily overpower and dominate her older ship but Brad ... eh Captain Boimler is apparently under special orders from the admiralty to keep the ‘kid gloves’ on.

This combined with Mariner’s superior knowledge of the Badlands, her lack of hesitation in employing dirty tricks and the fact that the Sentry itself sailed out to our first mission with a skeleton crew as well means that our battles are surprisingly even.

I have to give him his due, Brad’s weasel-like determination and ambition as well as strategic planing has stopped Mariner every time she tries to flee from the Badlands to normal safe space.

The Maquis are tired, low on supplies and most likely their ship will see an outbreak of disease or some other incident they simply aren’t equipped to handle, another foe like the Cardassians or Romulans would just keep the pressure up and let time work in their favor until Beckett has no option than to come to us on her knees begging and pleading ...

But of course we are the good guys so we’d NEVER even consider such a strategy.

In order to break this stalemate for the last 2 weeks secret negotiations have been conducted between the two captains ...

And for the record officially for the record I am not OK with what we’re doing here, first off even if both me and Brad are diplomats Boimler has always been more of an ‘endlessly debate minor legal quibbles and technicalities’ type of diplomat while I have a certain charm and talent for interpersonal communication.

I mean it should be obvious who would be better at talking to the rules breaking rogue vixen ? But apparently ‘Mariner doesn’t like your vibe so I’ll do this without a wingman’ ... Well I don’t like her face either ...

So this is why we’re here both ships in orbit around a barely M-class rock so that our two captains can have a melee only duel, Boimler wins then the Maquis surrender, Mariner wins then we limp back home and let them get away.

I know Boimler told me to be coordinating with our science and engineering teams to be on guard for any anomalies in this area, but pfft like that will happen right now.

End log,  
Cmdr. Fletcher”

* * *

Mariner could only observe the enemy captain materializing out of the transport beam and roll her eyes.

She’d told Boimler this was going to be a melee only duel and she was bringing her bat’leth and yet he chose a rapier to stand up to her ?

Her crew was as good as saved she thought, Beckett only hoped that a duel wouldn’t be too short and she would have the time to use her freshly thought up quip about how Bradward was obviously compensating for something with such a long sword.

45 minutes into an surprisingly even duel she had used it and even the second one about how width was even more important than length.

That one had zinged him since she could notice several hairs from his infuriatingly perfectly combed hair come loose, unfortunately maybe if she hadn’t leaned so much into psychological warfare she wouldn’t be on her back right now trying to push Boimler off from her.

“Like why are you so obsessed with me ?” Beckett tried for any possible edge given that their swords were interlocked and it was now a raw strength pushing contest.

“What do you mean obsessed ??? I was given this mission to take you back ... from your own mother might I add !” Brad replied his eyes growing wide at the sarcastic accusation of being obsessed.

Mariner was confident that despite her precarious situation, things were still going well Boimler could obviously be rattled which was an huge advantage, and by focusing so much on her he had ignored a hail from his ship about anomalous readings.

With just a bit of luck that was actually her crew putting into motion a sneaky plan, even if it meant breaking the treaty.

* * *

“Hey how many fingers do you see ?” Tendi asked the cyborg who was just now waking up.

“Uhmm 3 ? Are they supposed to be green ? Though they are a lovely shade of green, and so delicate and cute ... “ Rutherford was waking up but his brain-to-mouth filter was obviously lagging.

“ yeah _**snort**_ Orion over here _**snort**_ follow my finger I need to check if you don’t have any internal trauma ... you’re lucky as far as I can tell others were much more injured during whatever the hell happened ... and you’re doubly lucky ‘cause you ended up in my cell.”

“ your cell ? is this a slavery thing ? am I being evaluated to see how much I’m worth on the Orion slave market ???” as soon as the last word escaped from Rutherford’s mouth he knew he made a huge mistake as the Orion woman’s cheeriness drained from her features.

She continued to look him over.

“No major injuries, a multitude of easily fixable ones but not like I have my medical tools with me, there hypocratic oath fulfilled.” she quietly said to herself and made her way to the opposite corner of the cell.

Rutherford lasted 10 minutes before his guilt at seeing the lovely medic standing dejected gave him the power to try and speak again.

“Uhhmm I know we got off on the wrong foot but I just wanted to be clear that I don’t have anything against Orions, I’m not an racist because I ... “

“Let me guess you have lots of green friends ... “ Tendi shot back, but at least she was replying.

“No, no I mean I have purple friends, blue friends but sadly not a green one yettt ??? ...” Rutherford continued both earnestly and awkwardly.

“Well if you’re ready to educate yourself ... Tendi D’vana CMO of the USS.Sentry ...” the medic shifted her position towards him her tone now closer to her initial friendly one.

“I’m ... “

“Samathain Rutherford, Chief Engineer and XO of the Maquis ship Fraternité, we’ve been on this mission for so long and I've had to sit through so many briefings about you guys, I think I can quote your finals paper about plasma manifold efficiency by heart.”

Rutherford smiled, her finishing his sentence with the “lots of green friends” was a much better angle than what he wanted to go with.

Sam’s argument would have been “I’m not an racist because I find you beautiful ”.

Also IT WAS his lucky day he had someone to talk shop with.

“Hey before the god-like alien or whatever got our ships and dumped us here right at the end of the captain’s duel did it seem to you like Boimler and Mariner were ... “ Tendi started to ask now that she was more comfortable.

“yeah yeah I saw it too if they weren’t kissing already they were one second away from doing it before the transporting started.”

* * *

“It was a very solemn ceremony Boimler you did good, I could tell both crews appreciated it and it helped a little with making our peace with our loses.”

“Thank you, I wouldn’t have been able to do it without all your inputs for the speech, I wish there hadn’t been so many we lost from both our crews, or if we could have at least used the Caretaker’s technology in a safe way to return to our quadrant.” the purple haired captain rose from his chair and looked into the blackness of space through his office window.

“There’s no reason in obsessing over options you never had ... believe me if there had been a way back to the Alpha Quadrant I would have voiced my thoughts and what I mean by that is that I would have strangled you until you came to your senses and did the right thing.”

“Quite. About that ... the Fraternité our sensors let us know just how much damage she took, she won’t get back to Earth.“

“SHE WILL, she must ... it’s not like we’ve got another ... so get to your point, I hope you’re not talking just to hear your own voice.”

“Mariner, we won’t survive here in unknown space as two crews, I’m willing to take you in, you and all your men ... we’ll forget all the politics that divided us into Maquis and Star Fleet.” Boimler began his pitch despite Mariner rolling her eyes at the start.

“I’ll make you XO ...” he continued.

“How generous of you ... NOT ... that’s a strict downgrade.“ Mariner countered.

What was left unsaid was still the truth that the Maquis vessel was barely space-worthy after all the hell it had gone through in the last couple of days.

“And you’re going to make a rogue officer your first officer, have you gone insane Boimler ?” Beckett continue but with the sinking feeling that she was more arguing to get herself to reconsider.

“ ... but I need to know I can trust you. I need to know if we can work side by side ? The only way back home is if we work closely together ...”

Now she was the one looking into the office’s window, for all the darkness and stars outside it it was also acting as a mirror and Beckett could see herself and Boimer.

A more contrasting couple of captains you couldn’t find.

She was wearing her Maquis leathers which by necessity and by principle were not really an uniform, practical and always combat ready. Perfect for the sexy badass on the go.

Boimler was wearing a dress uniform, which she would never admit was making him look attractive in a very dignified way. One day lady diplomats would be swarming over the intellectual admiral at conferences.

The Star Fleet ship had more resources, enough to replicate dress uniforms, more space, better weapons and whatever material criteria you used it was better.

Brad was now retrieving a small jewelry box from his desk, keeping his eyes like a hawk on Mariner he opened it.

It contained a badge, shinny and chromed, Beckett could guess it was functionally standard but it had been designed to be visually a merger between the Star Fleet delta and the Maquis symbol.

In the silence they could both hear the other one’s breadth, steady and calculated, ponderous.

A look and a nearly invisible nod from Beckett was the sign for Brad to pin the insignia to her breast.

Mariner’s mind jumped back to his comment about needing to work closely together.

“Oh Boims I think you’ll see ... “ she leaned into his personal space never taking her eyes off from his, until their breadth almost mingled “I have no concept of personal space.”

* * *

“I declare the first iteration of ‘Mariner’s fabulous unofficial keg party’ open, I hope you’re all enjoying the location and the booze.”

“Location ?? You’ve shoved us all into your cabin ... and there’s hardly any booze here ...”

“Like OMG Jennifer this isn’t a party I just needed a pretext to get all my senior officers together somewhere where I can be reasonably sure Boimler isn’t watching, so we can conspire.”

“As if I would take YOU to any parties after that graduation incident at the academy.” Beckett felt the need to add.

“Wait conspire ? ...” Levy started “ all these years in search of the truth and now I’ve become the very thing I hate !”

“Chill Steve, we’re here to plan and strategize I know none of us are happy with joining this ship, but it is literally our best option ... still that doesn’t mean we’ll be good little officers hungry for a pat on the head from Brad. We will keep our own objectives, we will not let Star Fleet’s politics and pride keep us stranded here forever or needlessly prolong our road home. If need be ... we move and take over this ship.”

“Ok, captain you’ve had the most ... contact ... with the crew and you’re our voice in the merging ... I think you already have a plan.” Rutherford tried to keep the group on track.

“For the moment I only have the plan for Boimler, that’s why I called you all I want each of us to pair with an enemy officer and work on plans if we need to neutralize them or even better if you can subvert them without force."

Mariner seemed to hesitate a bit before going forward

"I will take Brad ... I have the most access I have already examined him in detail ... I’ll have him eating out of the palm of my hand in no time.” Beckett said finishing with a smile.

“Ohh ?? That’s your plan ?? Set phasers to 'slut' and fire away ?” Jennifer the Andorian couldn’t help but snark.

“Shut up Jenn !!” Mariner countered “ ... I don’t have to explain myself to you ALSO that’s a gross over-simplification of my plan ! You guys can chose whatever approach you think is best ... Come on this is a brainstorming ... I want targets chosen I want methods ... “

“Well ... “ Sam began hesitantly “ if we’re choosing officers as targets from their crew, their CMO Tendi is a key player, so I was thinking about a plan ... “

“Yes ??” Mariner encouraged him.

“What if I try to find out if she’s single, maybe we have stuff in common, maybe the time is right and we go out a few times, maybe there’s something there, maybe I start courting her respectfully and when we’re ready I ask her to marry me and then I love and honor her the rest of my life ?”

* * *

“Welcome to the committee on regulations for formal gatherings, this is an on-going effort to update our diplomatic protocol for medium-size diplomatic dinners but with the exclusion of formal balls or banquets. Thank you very much for accepting the invitation I hope you’re as excited about discussing proper forks as I am” Boimler greeted his officers once they were all in the meeting room together.

“Sir, there wasn’t any ‘accepting’ the email marked the meeting as mandatory.” Tendi couldn’t help but grumble as she didn’t know why she was summoned when there was so much medical work to do what with the two crews merging.

“Uhh thank you for speaking freely doctor, the whole diplomatic protocol aspect was just a ruse I needed to book a conference room and make sure Mariner wouldn’t like to hop in.”

“The real reason we’re here is for covert counter-insurgency ... yes yes I know the ink isn’t even dry on us and the Maquis being one crew one ship, but you all know me I prefer to have a proper plan, a proper protocol for any eventuality.”

The officers who were sitting around the table mainly who had remained of the Sentry’s original command crew nodded to their captain’s reasoning.

Boimler continued.

“I don’t know how many of you will remain bridge and senior staff in the new unified crew “ Brad focused for a split second on Barnes and Buddy, as the Vulcan officer was known among the crew, “but I value and need your input in this speak freely.”

“Is there any new information which we could use to update our files ? Has Captain Mariner been satisfied with your proposal up until now ?” the Trill engineer spoke first.

There was a weird feeling in Boimler’s stomach as if there was some cosmic meaning in her words he just wasn’t attuned enough to get.

“Mariner will be my XO ... it’s not a position she enjoys but is the one that will help the Maquis feel like they’re not being forced into working with us."

He made sure to emphasize his next point

"So we can leave out any suggestions about countering or covering Beckett ... that will be my job. Any other ideas ?”

“Oo Oo Oo me !”

“You have the floor Tendi.” Brad gestured as he felt his CMO’s enthusiasm starting to give him an headache.

“Ok so like you know the Maquis don’t really have a medic or healer just some members with really basic first aid, so I have a huge backlog of crew to treat from their side I get to see them all, do the chit-chat, have them sign some forms log in their allergies ... “

“Tendi ... please ... your plan!”

“Uhh right so Rutherford Samathain their engineer, big member of their command cadre ... “

“Yes ! We found you two in the same cell, do you have any special info ?” Boimler was starting to feel some hope.

“I recommend extreme caution around him ‘cause ... omg he’s so sweet he can literally give you diabetes ... and what a fine hunk ... come on Barnes back me up on this you know it’s true.”

* * *

“Ok let’s get the basics we agreed written down: Brad Boimler (me) is Captain, Beckett Mariner (you) is ... “

“Queen ... or Co-captain hmm what sounds best ?” Beckett jumped in.

“Mariner pleeeaaase I’m THIS close to popping a vein in my brain, we agreed First Officer and I won’t overrule you on Maquis internal matters ... “

“Ok chill Boimster I was just playing.”

“Good moving on, Chief Engineer I want Rutherford he is the best qualified mmm “ Boimler was interrupted as Beckett went besides him and placed her hand on his forehead checking his temperature.

Which resulted in Brad closing his eyes and emitting a satisfied little moan at the coolness of her palm.

While deep deep down Beckett did find this cute, she was more concerned by the fact he was running a fever, their last days had been hectic, they were separated in an unexplored quadrant and they had all been on alien planets recently.

She was starting to become afraid that all the stress chipped at his body’s natural defenses and he did catch something.

Luckily with his eyes closed in bliss Brad could not see the worry on her features.

“I agree with Sam as Chief Engineer but you are running hot, maybe you should have Tendi look you over ?”

“Uhhm I think I will but we need to get at least the senior staff filled out, speaking of D’vana I was thinking CMO ... “

“Well of course, what is there even to talk about ?” Mariner inquired.

“What I meant is that I would also like a CSO (Chief Science Officer) and I was thinking to ask Tendi to divide her time between both position ... but my projections and my instinct is that we have more need of a full time CMO and I shouldn’t put too much stress on her with two jobs.”

“Yeah we definitely will need the best medical care if we are to conserve our crew, I’m not sure we need a CSO to be frank.”

“This region of space is completely unknown to us ... if we can even fly back home at max warp it will be our descendants who will arrive ... we will face both dangers to the ship we need to analyze and our only way home might be a new technology or an anomaly ...”

“Ok ok I see your point ... I need to start thinking like an explorer again ... does this ship have an Emergency Medical Hologram (EMH) ? Tendi could leave the medical work to it and focus on the science mostly.”

“We have an EMH but I don’t know how much we can rely on it, Tendi called him ornery so him being the major care giver ... “

“Ornery ? We’re lost in space and you care about that ?”

“Tendi ... she wants to be liked this causes her to see the best in others so as to avoid conflict ... for example she called Khan a ‘nice man but a tad extreme in his ideas’ so if she says the EMH should not be the first option ... for CSO you have a former Science officer with some experience among your crew Steve Levy ... “

“Oh noNono I was hoping to use the crew merging as an excuse to shove that crackpot in a lab somewhere far from the bridge.” Mariner started feeling a headache of her own coming along.

“His file did mention his therapist recommended continued sessions ... “ Boimler thought aloud.

“Levy joined us Maquis because he’s convinced the Federation President and Council are all controlled by bluegils ... that’s what he calls an hypothetical evil-offshot species of Trill symbiots ...”

Brad just stared at her but eventually realized she wasn’t joking.

“Ok how about a compromise ... we tap Barnes as Operations Officer that gives her authority and responsibility over both Engineering and Science, she stays on the bridge and she manages Levy’s craziness on the day to day basis.”

“Cool let’s try it out, we can talk with Rutherford or Tendi on a case by case basis ... oh and if your girl Barnes has trouble with Steve: my suggestion is that she strap him down on a table and threaten him that she’ll shove her big squirming symbiot up his ass if he doesn’t play nice.” Beckett offered with a smirk.

Boimler wanted to note that Barnes was not a joined Trill and did not have a symbiot she could use in such a manner, thankfully he caught on Mariner was joking this time before he spoke.

He was also 60% sure there were some sexual undertones in Mariner’s suggestion but chose to ignore them.

“Okkk so moving on to Tactical and Security ... I’m willing to offer the position to your command cadre, Jennifer ...”

“No, NOPE screw Jennifer !” Mariner interrupted.

“But she’s the most qualified and it would help the crews if both SF and Maquis are equally represented on the bridge ...”

“I’ll do tactical myself then.” Beckett knew she was being petty but this was also a low risk opportunity to see how Brad would react to her veto-ing his plans.

If push came to shove it was a good outcome for her side for Jennifer to be on the bridge.

Brad on the mean time was trying not to smile, Tactical was usually bundled with Security and that last one was where he absolutely wanted to place his man.

“How about another experiment I have a good man who can do security, you might have seen him the Vulcan Buddy, usually Tactical and Security are both joined together but maybe Jenn could take tactical and Buddy sec. We see if they can work together ?”

“Uhh a Vulcan !! Great ... Andorians just hate working with them and Jenn is always going on and on about Andorian culture muahaha ... “ Mariner concluded with an evil laugh.

She was quite proud of it.

Brad was starting to re-think his life’s choices though.

* * *

“Hey Boims, you called ?” Beckett greeted as she came into his office towards the end of the “day”.

“Yep here look at this please.” he said pushing a small PADD towards her.

Mariner quickly scanned it, it was the result of an complete medical scan done by Tendi on Boimler, end result was that he was having a regular flu and was feeling the results off stress from trying to merge the SF and Maquis into a functioning crew.

Nothing out of the ordinary or threatening.

“Congrats, this is what you wanted to see me about ?”

“I wanted to show you that I followed up on your input.”

“Listen Boims you don’t need to do a whole song and dance number about how you care about my feelings, this isn’t high school ... we’re not at the cinema ... you’re not trying to get into my pants.”

The slight smile disappeared from his face and he couldn’t fight the eye roll that followed.

“I’m being serious, you’re the XO for me that isn’t just an empty title, you have more experience than me I need you looking at my actions and not being afraid to step up and give me your honest thoughts. I know you will be great at that ... I just need you to know I will give your opinions the weight they deserve.”

Beckett could swear he was being sincere but some well-built-up defense mechanism couldn’t just leave it at that.

“Ok captain Silver Tongue but don’t forget I grew up on a ship I know the reality ... as First Officer I’m more like your secretary no matter how many articulate thesis you conjure up about the subject.”

“Mmm if you’re my secretary I should change the uniform code and get you in one of the miniskirt uniform variants.”

Boimler froze after he realized what he said out loud.

“Ohh who is the HR rep on our ship ? I have a complaint to file.” Beckett teased automatically.

She meant it as a jest but the atmosphere was quickly fading, time to go even more outrageous for the purpose of defusing it and seeing just how far she could take him.

“Although I do understand you, sometimes even I look at my shapely, well built legs in the mirror let’s hope I don’t drop something “ she threw the PADD on the floor “and NEED to bend over ever so slowly to get it.”

“Ok, understood understood ... I’ll keep it on the holodeck.” Brad said obviously trying to force a neutral official tone.

But Beckett couldn’t help but notice he only found his words after she finished her little peep show, and she wasn’t sure how serious he was about that second part.

“Actually if we’re here there’s something I want to discuss with you ... branding esprit-de-corps, the bridge ... “ she changed the subject.

“Quite, please go on.” Boimler acknowledged focused again.

* * *

“ ... in an unknown part of the galaxy what we do know ... what binds us together is that we need to return to the same home. We need to realize this we all have loved ones waiting for us, but the only people you can trust to get you home are sitting right beside you.” Brad was finishing a part of his speech.

“For months we looked to each other as enemies as terrorists and oppressors, as sellouts and reactionaries. Life is strange here, it’s unfair if you had told me a week ago that I would be standing side by side with Boimler and looking NOT at a rules obsessed, title-hungry, pasty self-important nerd BUT as the man alongside with I WILL go home with ... I would have called you crazy AND decked you.” Mariner continued.

“Now I will punch if you say that I can’t work with his pasty ass that we are not getting home together. This ship has one destination home, be ready to work with us to get there or jump off NOW.”

“Ha ha thank you Mariner that was a great improvisation it’s stuff like that which will get us home ... “ Brad tried not to sound disappointed she was ad-libing most of her stuff.

He was seated on the Sentry’s original command chair, the crew had stripped the Fraternité of everything they could for the journey back to the Alpha Quadrant, and upon her request the Maquis command chair had been jurry rigged into the bridge along side his.

Boimler did have to agree it was sending a good visual image, Maquis and SF working together sitting as equals, only downside was seeing Beckett so close and her smiling at his compliment on her speech was conjuring up butterflies in his stomach.

“Fact is no matter what ship we are on ... “ Boimler tried to channel gravitas into the end of the speech “ ... we are no longer simply the USS.Sentry or the Fraternité, we’ve decided on a new name, a baptism for our new mission to return home: USS Chevalier !!!”

While the previous parts of the speech had a backdrop of hums of agreement now there was just a dead silence.

“Oh come on it’s French !! You Maquis just love French ... “

“Told you it was too scholastic of a choice.” Mariner couldn’t help but rub salt in the wound.

“What about the online poll ?” someone spoke up to ask.

“Nope ! We are not naming the ship ‘Boaty McBoatface’ !!!” Brad retorted and proceeded to huff.

Mariner lightly touched him on the hand the signal that they still had to order warp and that they’d agreed to do it together, this first symbolic time.

“Set course ! Max Warp ... “

“We’re getting home !”

* * *

On the next episode, is there anything more awesome for a newlywed couple than frequent visits from the parents ? The House of Martok takes it’s franchising seriously. The House of Boimler is still working on it’s merch.

_**Chapter XI: House of Boimler Part IV** _

“What is that ?”

“It’s our House’s motto ... apparently ?”

“Can’t we have something less romantic and gag-inducing ?”

...

“Come on, you’re acting as if she’d blow the lid on us just on principle.”

“You don’t know my mom ... “


	16. Short: Children of the revolution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A revolution takes place on the planet were Boimler and Mariner were part of an observation mission, the Cerritos can return after it's missing children only after some months.
> 
> Special: This will require at least another chapter in the future, sorry I didn't mean to start another multi-short story arc but when the fever dream of inspiration hits. Next full chapter will be the previously announced House of Boimler promise.

The survey team was trivial to ambush, they were only 5 men all of them non-combatants, albeit with their entire planet Galia Prime locked in a constant cycle of revolution and counter-revolution for the past 7 months, that distinction was not as clean cut as he would have preferred.

They each ran their own separate ways after the smoke grenade hit, but whether consciously or not Boimler was the only one who was running in the correct pattern to minimize the chances he could be targeted and maximize his chances for dodging.

Shax took off at my signal and he ran Boimler down in no time, I could scarcely contain my glee at seeing the young ensign, and he did seem young and scared caught in the Bajoran’s grip the already boyish Boimler seemed almost child-like for a second.

The first wave of joy was at finding my crewmate, finding him alive and relatively well, but the second and I had to admit almost as strong source of joy was that my method of tracking him down was what finally brought success.

The people of Galia Prime were in fact a long lost human colony, an all too tragic tale: human thirst for the unknown, primitive ships, space anomalies that took them much farther than expected.

They had regressed partially, their knowledge of the home-world turned into debatable myths they were now at a technological level similar to 18th century Earth.

But physically they were all human, which meant just scanning for Mariner and Boimler from the surface impossible as there were no biological differences.

“Jack if your idea for tracking them by the skills of their cover-identies works and you find Mariner ... I swear to you I and my ... people at the Admiralty won’t rest until you are Captain Ransom.”

That’s what Captain Freeman has said 3 weeks ago, and I knew she meant it, 7 months ago when we were ambushed by the Romulans who through their puppets had somehow made Galia Prime their protectorate, the captain had lead the Cerritos into battle against 2 Deridex class ships only retreating when it was absolutely clear we could not retrieve our personnel on the service.

So she cared, a lot, about Boimler and Mariner and now with Brad here and Beckett hopefully close at hand I was as good as captain.

“Please I don’t pay the taxes, the lord who owns the mines he pays ... to ... the Red Consul ?? Yes the Red Consul ... we’re on your side !”

Boimler thought we were a faction in the civil war, here to shake him down for money.

Shax and T’Ana were holo-disguised as humans but the fact he did not recognize me meant that our worst fears might be true.

Beckett and Brad were assigned to field test a new methodology for surveying pre-warp civilizations, volunteers would be pyscho-conditioned with new native identities.

They would 100% believe they were natives, all observations and tasks would happen on a subconscious level, and when the mission was done their real personas would be given back control of their bodies.

The fact that the Galians were humans meant that no further procedures were necessary to blend in, it was supposed to be a relatively safe study they would have gone native 2 weeks at most.

“Don’t you remember me ?” I ask taking down my hood and making sure to give him a good look “What is your name ?”

“No !? Should I ? ... My name is Leon Bona, you must have confused with someone else, this is an misunderstanding we’re all friends here.” he was trying to placate us.

“What do you do ?”

“I’m an engineer ... geology ... boring stuff actually not anything you’d need in the military ... “ Boimler responded still trying to weasel his way out of the danger he thought he was in.

If the psycho-conditioning was degrading, Boimler had enough knowledge to be considered doctorate in multiple fields by the planet’s standards.

“Commander, don’t press too much, the consequences for merging the two personas could be severe.” T’ana interrupted.

The best approach would have been to beam him back to the ship and everything there, but if my intuition about these two was right and they were still sticking together Boimler not returning home would mean Beckett would flee and we’d lose her.

“Do you know this young woman ?” I asked bringing up a picture of Mariner on my PADD.

The sight of the PADD triggered something in him, he had doubtlessly heard that the factions in the civil wars were allied with different men from beyond the stars, from his perspective he had gone from being mugged to potentially much worse.

“No, no. I mean how could a man like me know a beautiful lady like her ? ... No, no I mean she’s nasty ... “

You don’t get to be command without being taught how to read people, he was lying and hard.

“She’s not who you think she is ... we don’t mean neither of you any harm.” I try to make my sincerity get through to him.

“I. DON’T. KNOW. HER.” ok I can appreciate the sentiment but we really don’t have the time.

“Doctor apply the treatment please, Lieutenant make sure to keep him down he will most likely spasm, he’ll tell us Mariner’s location afterwards when he’s come to his senses.”

“No no I’m lying ... I’m actually a military engineer I can fix your cannons or make them better ... I have some officer potential ... I’d love to serve the Purple Consul and crush the reactionaries. Let’s go now I’ll serve with you !!”

Nice, last try to get us to forget about Mariner but he did not understand at all the situation.

T’ana placed all the necessary electrodes and neural-enhancers and after a painfully long period of spasms Boimler seemed to stabilize.

“Commander Ransom ?”

“Yes son, tell me how much do you remember ?”

“Breadth in... relax ... it will take a bit for the personas to fully merge.” the doctor instructed.

“I remember the mission briefing like it was yesterday ... then ohGod!!! Mariner !!!”

“What about her ? Is she alive ?” I can’t help but jump, even if she was a pain she was a crewmate and a fellow child of the Cerritos.

“She...We...When we thought we ... Yes Ensign Mariner is alive, she is in the town nearby we’ve been traveling together ... trying to survive in the chaos of all these revolutions.”

“What about your handlers ? All the technicians that were supposed to supervise you ? All the experts ?”

“The building which was our command center ... during the initial revolts a stray cannon shell hit it, I’m nearly sure me and Beckett are the only survivors.”

“Doctor T’Ana is that you ?” Bradward was looking at the image of the medic, a middle aged red-headed woman “Can you bring Beckett back ? We live in a small house 30 minutes from here ohGod how can I explain ? How will she react ?”

“Knowing Mariner ? ... Violently” Shax replied matter-of-factly.

We all chuckled at this, except Boimler who was still lost in thought.

“Don’t worry ensign, since the procedure worked well on you it should be the same for her. Or is she is suffering from other injuries ? Anyway I see no reason why not to extract her now, right commander ?” the CMO offered.

I nodded and we released Boimler so he could show us the way, he was fidgeting but he seemed to be also willing his body back under control.

There was a fire in his eye that spoke of wanting to get to Mariner as soon as possible.

“Not exxaactly injured but since we were Leon and Marine ... [deep breadth] it’s good you’re here doc we haven’t been able to pay for a meeting with a healer here for 3 months ... “

“I’ve got all the lights I need to wave over her, right here with me.”

“ ... and she is 6 months pregnant with our child.”


	17. House of Boimler Part IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Boimler and Mariner receive their complimentary on-boarding gift package from the House of Martok corporate HR, Levy and Barnes learn what Klingon 'couple t-shirts' look like.
> 
> Specials: None, just some romatic fluff.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long time to get this out, RL is being crowded, initially this was part of a chapter that was to be twice as long but the entire chapter had some challenges in plot/continuity. 
> 
> I don't like chapter inflation but I hope by splitting it up the other half will arrive sooner and with better quality than if it had been packaged with this one.
> 
> I wanted as the trailer implied to discuss Boimler's parents this chapter but hopefully I will get to the next half that ended up as a separate chapter as soon as possible.

_**Ensign Beckett Mariner** _

I woke up from a great night’s sleep, it just felt such a damn shame to get out of bed that I was almost considering quitting my Star Fleet commission just to stay in bed a few more hours.

Which would be ironic because as civilian I wouldn’t have access to these Star Fleet pillows, which come to think about it don’t usually have this nice consistency, texture or heating ...

I fully open my eyes, taking in my new quarters, the blanket I had mostly claimed for myself, Brad’s pasty but well toned legs sticking outside ...

Then it hit me, everything I had done the bar fight, the trial, Brad’s ridiculous plan, the wedding.

As if on cue my shuddering woke Bradward up and he looked liked he was going to complain about me being the worst bunk-mate ever, his eyes lazily slowly crawled over me half-lidded until they opened at light speed.

“It’s all real ?!? It wasn’t a dream ???”

“Welcome to married life honey.” I couldn’t help but deadpan.

As sensible and now fully awake people the heat of our bodies, our legs intertwined, became unbearable so we both jumped to our side of the bed, I couldn’t help but throw a sad look at “Extra Long Toby” who was now on the floor, surely he had fought to keep our decency but without knowing me or Boimler pushed him out.

“Dibs on the bathroom.” my weasel of husband proclaimed reminding me again that we were still on a ship and we in theory had a shift to do.

As I waited for Brad to finish his fucking turn, and they said women take a long time getting ready, I couldn’t help but look at my erstwhile pijama in the mirror.

A comfortable cotton top white, not too tight not too baggy.

Matching cotton bottoms.

A rocking body, but that was always there.

So the outfit was decent certainly if Brad’s eyes had lingered on me before retreating to the bathroom that was his fault, he should know better than to fall in love or in lust with his wife.

The butterflies that appeared in my stomach as he was eyeing me, might have disagreed but they were thankfully gone now.

My turn finally came, as I was washing my teeth, I could hear the door to our cabin sliding open without a request.

With horror I then heard Bradward’s voice:

“Cap’n !”

“Er mother-in-law ??”

“Captain mommy ?”

Rushing to finish myself up I entered the main room to see Boimler as the target for one of mom’s ‘high yield’ stares, slowly trying to back away but with nowhere to run.

“Mom ! What’s up ? What’s in the package ?” I said noticing the hover-container she had dragged along.

“You two got a lot of mail while you were sleeping, given the situation I had Shax run a through scan for any tracking devices or other espionage tools but all this stuff seems to clean. I came over here to deliver it personally so I could give you more directions.”

“Sadly there won’t be too many opportunities like this, me just showing up in your quarters often will raise all sort of questions.”

I could only fight to keep the smile from appearing on my lips, I bet Brad was struggling with the same.

“Now normally newly married officers would take advantage of the offered shore leave and go on a honeymoon “ Freeman continued “but with your unique problems the best way to keep you safe from prying eyes is being in deep space on missions.”

“I would have ordered the ship to depart already but since Chancellor Martok and Lady Sirella have personally gotten involved in planning your bachelor party respectively bachellorette party we can’t do that without gravely insulting allied heads of state.”

“After the parties are done, you two will go about your work usually, if anyone comments the cover stories will be ... “

“Boimler ! You’re an ambitious boot-licker that’s just desperate to rise up in rank so you chose to indulge your workaholic tendencies to get to lieutenant faster.”

I couldn’t help but snicker as mom locked Brad straight in the eye as she told him the cover ‘story’, damn she was cold.

“Beckett ! You’re so out of touch with normal life that your idea of civilian society is that place you go pub crawling.”

Now it was Brad’s time to smirk.

Mom took a deep breadth then began to finish.

“I was ... going to give you more tips on how to fool people into believing you really are lovers but ... “ she then took a painfully long look at the bed that had been obviously slept-in and at the couch which had obviously not “ ... I think they might not be needed.”

Having fulfilled her quota for overbearing mom moments for the day, captain Freeman left our quarters.

“God some people with the assumptions ... she obviously thought we slept together.” I couldn’t help but say aloud.

“Yeah just because we did sleep together ... and are married ... Ha ha ha.”

For some reason, now that I was rested the incident in the library crept up from my memory, and I found myself laughing along with an laughter equally awkward as Brad’s.

Just to have something to do except than think about the time I threw myself at him to get some last non-prison sex.

Finally we both concentrated on the container the captain had brought in. It ended up being full of more packages. Each and every one of them having the crest of House Martok on them.

“Congratulations to you members of the House of Boimler snort by swearing your allegiance to House Martok you have entered a vibrant franchise with a prosperous and honorable future. House Martok currently has 24 other houses sworn to itself and ... bla bla bla Basically this is a welcome package to get us feeling welcome, given that this is obviously printed and Martok’s signature is not done by hand I guess everyone gets a package like this.” Boimler read the note aloud for my benefit.

“Not everyone Boimster, remember we’re the lady and the lord of our own House now.” I reminded him but did it in a overly fake posh accent to make it clear he shouldn’t let it go to his head.

“Oooh sweet batl’eth !!!” I couldn’t help but say as he dug out a brand new klingon sword, the composition of the metal seemed different from my own old weapon, the design of the spikes was different as well.

Overall it had a modern sleek appearance, it almost seemed designed following the same schools of thought Federation designers used.

“Thanks ... “ Brad genuinely smiled proud of his new weapon and then considered “ ... do you want it ? I know you could use it to greater effect.”

“Nah I’m good, I’ve gotten used to the weight and feel of my own. Oo we’ve got to schedule some training sessions for you on the holodeck.”

Brad looked like he wanted to say something but he then began looking intently at the blade.

“What is that ?” I asked pointing to a rather overly decorated Klingon phrase which had been expertly etched into the blade.

It was obviously meant to be both seen and read, most likely a ceremonial phrase or quote from Kahless give the old dialect it was written in, which was giving me problems translating it without the computer.

“It’s our House’s motto ... apparently ?” Boimler had retreaved a Klingon Padd which seemed to be the manual or certificate of quality for his new blade.

“We have a House motto ?” I couldn’t help but repeat.

“I think Martok or Sirella chose it specifically this doesn’t sound like the other corporate-HR tone of the document ... our motto is ‘Love Redeems Life’ ...”

“Can’t we have something less romantic and gag-inducing ?” I couldn’t help but immediately snark even if I knew from Martok and Sirella’s perspective the quote was meaningful and personal ... maybe it would grow on me or maybe I’d just never bring it up ever.

Boimler shrugged, even if I think his ego loved this entire ‘noble, head of his own House’ stuff he didn’t seem to especially like the motto.

“Hmm Martok also agrees with you, about me needing practice with the blade. Lest my pour performance affect his standing and honor.” Brad said fishing out what seemed to be a hand written note from the box which had the batle’th and reading it.

“Perfect, done I’ve got exactly the program you need, I bet I can convince mom to give us extra hours for it .” for some reason spending even more time with Brad sparked a small flame of joy inside, one that I was careful not to let show.

“I think I have a better idea though ?”

“What ?” even if the fact that his cheeks were starting to redden and he seemed to be skittish in tone was giving me some hints.

“What we talked yesterday about and what your mom warned us again, we should ugh ... practice being a couple ... onlySoNobody finds out we’re faking it.”

“Oh Bradward, Bradward, Bradward ... that has to be the lamest attempt at getting me into bed that I’ve ever seen ... “ we both looked to the bed we had slept together in “ YOU know what I mean!”

“FINE rot in jail for all I care.” he huffed intentionally over-dramatic and turned from me.

For some reason I realized this intentional drama queen theatrics were to show that my sarcasm did hit a nerve.

He was right we should spend some time faking couple-like behavior so that we don’t blow our cover, but I’d be damned before I admit him being correct out loud.

“So I bow to your wisdom, you mighty man so in touch with his emotions ... what should we start with ?” there I hoped that was enough sarcasm so that he doesn’t think to hard about me asking him to take the lead.

“Oh ? Well ... We ... we could ... “ he was not prepared for me agreeing, nor did he have any concrete idea “ holding hands ! Yeah !”

Yes it was an Earth custom for couples when walking at their leisure to hold hands as a display of affection.

So why did the sight of Boimler’s outstretched hand trigger a feeling of fate through me ?

Ok just like in the simulations or at the academy ...

Hand docking maneuver initiated.

Contact achieved.

Heat from Bradward’s body was within nominal parameters, pressure up to standards, fingers fully interlocked.

This wasn’t so bad, I could almost get used to doing this with another person again.

* * *

_**Ensign Bradward Boimler** _

We exited our quarter when an alarm on both our PADD’s reminded us that yes despite the chaos of these days and the insanity we were still officers on a ship, we had schedules we had duties.

Fortunately we had just regular tech maintenance tasks for today, hours upon hours of working in our repair bay with no one around to gawk at the newly married couple or to ask too many questions.

So of course the moment we put one foot out on the corridor, Levy’s door opened as well revealing the conspiracy nut himself ... and Barnes ?

“Heyyy congratulations !” Levy said as a greeting.

“Still in honeymoon bliss I see.” Barnes joined with a smile, I guess to try and smooth over her refusing Beckett’s request from yesterday.

I couldn’t help but notice both of their gazes were on our hands, specifically that me and Mariner were still holding hands.

Really we were still holding hands ? I remember trying it out, feeling kind of good and then the whole exploring the rest of the House Martok merchandise.

We couldn’t have done that holding hands, so why are we holding hands now without agreeing ?

Not like we subconsciously would do it, I mean yeah we’re used to each other’s presence but ...

“Didn’t humans use rings to mark their marriages ?” Barnes voice cut through my stream of thoughts.

I swear I can feel the heat in Mariner’s hands as if her blood is starting to boil at Barnes getting into our business.

The low rumbling I think I’m hearing in her throat isn’t helping either.

“A lot of cultures on Earth do that, but not all of them,” Levy responded and thinking back Barnes did turn to him and address the question.

But wasn’t Barnes half human on her father’s side ? Or am I remembering stuff wrongly.

“Though ... nice baldric I take it you’re going with Klingon traditions since you guys married here ?” Levy was going out of his way to be friendly. Probably even he understood that having bad blood with your only neighbors was a pain in the ass.

“Boimler’s questionable choices in fashion aside what were YOU doing in Levy’s quarters now before shift starts ?” Becket seemed to have taken a fight fire with fire strategy about all of Barnes’s questions yet still ...

QUESTIONABLE FASHION CHOICES ???

You were the one who kept encouraging me to wear this thing:

“Worf wore one and everyone said it made him look very dignified ... “

“It makes you look promotable ... “

“Aren’t you proud ? Not even 30 yet and lord of your own House ... “

“Makes you look so manly rawr ... “ ok the last one was certainly her joking but there was something in her voice when she said it.

“Ohhh I just did some repairs in his quarters last night, and since we left in a bit of a hurry to the bar I didn’t notice I must have dropped my favorite hair-clip somewhere in there ... I couldn’t just replicate another it’s a memento from my family it’s practically a part of me.” Barnes began.

“Steve the sweetheart, got up an hour earlier and tried to find it but ... “

“We both have duties on the deflector this entire week so of course I’d look for it ... couldn’t find the damn thing today but we can always try again after our shift ... “ Levy seemed earnest but there was a small smile on his lips when talking about getting the engineering ensign back in his quarters which spoke of more.

“Isn’t that perfect ? A LITTLE TOO PERFECT ???” came Mariner’s not so subtle accusation.

Oh boy and I couldn’t even tell who was she accusing this time:

Barnes intentionally leaving her stuff to come back for some reason ?

Levy maybe having found the clip but hiding it so he could creep on Barnes ?

“Aham yeah so I’m trying to get more into Klingon culture, Mariner knows I think at least 10 times more and she’s been teaching me, she actually replicated all these badges on my baldric.”

Both Barnes and Levy shifted their focus, we were all walking to the turbolifts me and Mariner still holding hands they relatively close to each other, to the badges and insignia on my baldric.

It was a calculated risk, shift the conversation to something else, with my little lie about Beckett giving me all the insignia hopefully they wouldn’t notice and ask about the three badges that were official and from Martok himself:

The first one marking me as a Klingon noble and head of my own house.

The second marking me as a direct vassal of Martok.

The third showing me a veteran of the “battle” where I captured Mariner to be my bride.

All three facts were not communicated by Freeman to the rest of the ship and we would have preferred if people didn’t dig them up.

Still the three problematic badges were surrounded by a whole host of other badges Beckett had taken upon herself to create via the replicator with such humble meanings as:

“Husband to a beautiful wife”,

“Husband to a strong wife”,

“Husband to a intelligent wife”,

“My wife knows best”,

Etc

So I didn’t bet on Levy and Barnes finding something, even I just gave up and put every insignia she gave me on my sash.

“What does this one mean ?” Barnes pointed to a particularly large one which was featured prominently.

During my studies I learn the Klingon runes, but the way they were used symbolically to make up the badges made them rather hard to read, still the badge being so large meant that it’s meaning was more specific and complex.

“It says you have a sailor in your possession ... no ... other way around it says YOU are the possession of a sailor ? “ the Trill tried to translate.

Levy jumped in.

“Ah a synonym for sailor is ‘mariner’ , you know when they could only sail the seas, so if you interpret this as ‘Mariner’ aka Beckett’s last name it means ... “

“Owned by ... or rather ‘Property of Mariner’ “ Barnes finished giving me a knowing look.

Levy was showing a little smirk but not malicious.

The lady herself was wearing her ‘oh did I do this ? I’m such a naughty girl’ half lidded expression, neither confirming or denying the meaning.

Meanwhile I was trying to own me having such a badge, you know chin up try not to blush too much.

The not blushing too much part was not being helped by Mariner stealthily confirming the message by giving me a quick slap on my ass.


	18. Short: Children of the revolution Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mariner recovers her memories, fun times are ahead.

“ ... and Mariner is 6 months pregnant with our child.”

“What ?” I could hear myself saying.

“Are fucking serious with me ?” T’Ana asked.

“By the prophets !! Child, are you two even married ?” Shaxx added his own perspective.

“Uhm yes, yes I’m serious does this sound like something I’d joke about ?? Also kind of, see by the time we figured out she was pregnant, by the time we decided we would raise he or she together ... we were out of money public officials won’t come to a city hall without a sizable bribe here anymore ... “

As Boimler babbled on about what had happened to them, I couldn’t help it and my attention was split between him and remembering all the estimates our data scientists had made.

Scenarios upon scenarios:

We cannot take the planet back.

We ally with the Romulans.

The Romulans leave on their own. 

Each of them branching off, if we take the planet back in 3 months X% chance all of our people are dead Y% chance Mariner and Boimler in particular are dead, X + 2% per month chance they cannot be taken out of their personas.

I remember when I finally found the solution to track them, Freeman was in her office looking over a bunch of particularly nasty scenarios:

Mariner dead.

Mariner raped in the inner city riots and then mutilated and killed.

Mariner’s true self completely subsumed by the fake persona and her being in some hamlet at the end of the world, growing old there.

Freeman looked like she was at least 30 years older constantly eyeing those graphs with a bottle of whiskey on her desk.

I never saw the captain more happy then when I presented the chances to find them using my improved occupation based survey, her promise of fast tracking my career aside it really did feel like I saved her life in that moment and it made me proud to think I would be returning two of the Cerritos’s errant children back to her.

Mariner is not injured as far as Boimler is telling us, she’s not dead, she and Boimler have managed to keep themselves whole through this entire civil war. 

She is just pregnant ... none of the scenarios considered that, though some of them did consider her co-habitating with a native of the planet.

Even if the captain does not recommend me, I can sleep well at night we are bringing our people home.

I order our group to go to the couple’s house on foot, Boimler assures us it’s a 30 minutes walk only, even if he is back I’d rather not transport him back to the Cerritos and force him to try and find the location to teleport from a perspective he has never seen the town from.

And the walk should give him more time to adjust, our doctor nodded in approval she probably appreciates the extra time to study Boimler a bit more while also thinking how to proceed with Mariner.

Shaxx is now listening to Brad’s tales both getting a feel for the tactical situation and allowing the ensign to relax by talking.

“Soo without money the only way to get married so the child wouldn’t be a bastard was with a monk, now the Red Consul is against monastic orders, the Blue Consul is against religion as a whole and his bureaucrats will only accept secular papers ... “

“Ransom, come in Ransom ... this is the Cerritos !” Captain Freeman’s voice in my combadge is controlled but from our years serving together I can hear the edge in it.

I fall behind to answer.

“What is your status ? T’Ana has assembled a medical team and is asking for the teleport to be directly to sickbay ... “

“We are good for the moment, Boimler has been extracted, physically he is unharmed and the procedure seems to work ... “

“Then the doctors ... “ the dread was audible.

“Brad has told us of Mariner’s location, it turns out despite their personas not being programmed for it they fell in together after the outpost was destroyed ... stray artillery shot apparently Boimler thinks there are no other survivors ... “

“We’l investigate further, whatAboutBeckett?”

“She and ensign Boimler have been ... living together ... she is safe, she is healthy ... well you know given the technology here.”

“We can fix her. Can we fix her ? What is with the medical team if she is healthy ???”

“Captain it’s ... uhh a private matter I need to confirm with our own eyes we are soon to arrive.”

“Jack, I’m her ... her captain ... fine you are on the field I’ll go with your decision I will be in sickbay when you beam up WithBeckett !!! don’t waste time but let T’Ana do her work.”

“Sir ? Beckett’s very jittery because she can’t fight as well now that she’s 6 months along ... so I’ll slip back into the role, lie about your group, just lie and tell her anything so that she’s not afraid. I cannot stress this enough I am not relapsing it’s all a lie for Mariner’s benefit.”

“Sure son, go ahead we’ll follow your lead.” We were in the stairwell of a rundown house the two ensigns barely made enough money to rent out one room on the first floor.

“Marine ? My love ?” Boimler called out even before we got in front of the door.

“It’s me ! I have brought a ... “ he looked to Shax and T’Ana “a noble couple, their daughter is to come of age soon and they need an instructor for her ... it’s just us, my love, please believe me they’re trustworthy ... it’s just them here them and their oafish man-servant.”

“She has a loaded revolver.” he whispered to me as an apology. 

In command you have to learn many skills, you have to posses certain qualities before even being considered for command, and there are so many skills so many wholes that each would-be captain has to fill in themselves or their abilities. 

Take for example reading people, both an talent and a learn-able skill to a certain degree, nonetheless essential.

Take Boimler for example.

He has just told a lie recently, not to Mariner but to himself first-most and to me without realizing.

The lie wasn’t telling Mariner that he loved her so that she would not be afraid.

The lie was that to himself so he would not be afraid.

Everything he had told Mariner about loving her was to my trained eye the absolute truth.

The door finally opened, and once inside we were greeted by the very much pregnant Mariner.

As officers and thus gentlemen and gentlewomen we looked away giving the young couple the most minimum of privacy for their kiss.

“The lady “ Boimler pointed to T’Ana “is actually a healer by ... scholarly aspiration please my love just let her consult you so that she tells us of the babe ... then of course I will let you negotiate your own wage.”

“A woman healer ? What has the world come to ? Leon you do know the difference between a midwife and a healer, no ?” Mariner was clearly hesitant.

“Yes yes woman doctors ... cats and dogs living together end of the world bla bla “ T’Ana was not in the mood as she put the necessary devices on the ensign openly using her medical tricorder and at least not seeming to see something amiss.

“You !! “ she turned to Boimler “ at least hold her hand ... Marine you might feel dizzy or about to pass out but please I know you can do this for your baby boy ... breadth in ... breadth out ... keep a rhythm ... keep calm ...”

Boimler took her hand and Mariner though still wary smiled at him, I think this was the connection between lovers for all this was strange to her, she knew he trusted us, thus she was going along.

“Damn right you should at least hold my hand, it’s your fault I’m like this.” she lightly teased him.

The CMO activated her machines and the process went as with Boimler, actually she might have spasmed less and been a bit more in control, something we all were happy for.

“Uh Boimler ... whyWhy are we holding hands ?” she turned to the person closest to her.

“Shouldn’t we be down on the pla ... no.no.no” Mariner looked down at her belly fully realizing what her body was telling her.

“No!! What did we do ?!? What did YOU do ? How could you do this to me you IDIOT ???” Beckett was full-on shouting now.

“Hey it takes two to ... tango.” Boimler said, trying to both defend himself and placate her.

“Ransom ... Shaxx ? Doc ? Does this mean the Cerritos is saving us ? ... Mom is going to kill me ... “

“Beckett I take full responsibility I’m not going to run away and leave you two in ... “ Brad said earnestly.

This earned him just a sarcastic chuckle. 

Damn that was cold.

“Oh Brad, Brad, Brad mother is going to kill you ... straight out the airlock ... dad will probably fish what’s left of you from space and put your remains in front of a firing squad.”

“Look I’ve never met your parents and yes this is god I can’t even describe it but I will be there with you, for our son no matter what ... “

“We’ll ... talk about this without company present.” she said eyeing us.

“You’ll talk on the ship, you haven’t been eating right here ... by their standards you might be fine but by ours I’ve got a lot of treatments to get you and the child in the best possible state.” T’Ana began ordering in her full “I’m the doctor here!!!” tone.

“This idiot ... “ Beckett turned to Brad.

“Yes yes I know he’s being giving you most of his daily meals, you think I didn’t notice he’s even worse off than you. We’ll get you both fixed up.”

“Cerritos away team plus Mariner and Boimler for transport, with special medical protocols as per T’Ana’s instructions !!” I called in to the ship.

As we beamed up it was a small thing but I noticed Mariner and Boimler joining hands again.


	19. Mirror Match Part 0

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remedial reading from the Academy might not be what it seems, as it gets you to questions your own self.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Specials: AU, MU, Info Dump
> 
> Hello so this is a bit of an experiment on my part, I've been wanting to do a Mirror Universe story here since before writing any fic for this show, in fact it was my first idea, but I've kept putting it off as other more easily translatable-to-page ideas revealed themselves to me.
> 
> So as not to put this off any longer I've decided to write a small intro so that I need to then finish it eventually.
> 
> Another problem with plotting my real MU story was the needed amount of info dumps/exposition I would need to bring readers up on where the MU canonically is, where it will go to in my story and how the LDS characters fit into it.
> 
> Thus I handled both problems I've written a smaller more easy to read chapter 0 which will set up all the characters for the real story which will start in chapter I.
> 
> I'm sorry if this more dry exposition isn't as engaging I promise not to resort to it if I can avoid it.
> 
> Next chapter will be as I promised before in the "House of Boimler" arc.

Greetings agent,

I am sure you are glad to see that this is not in fact remedial reading from your academy space walking instructor but is in fact the first of many off-the-books briefings now that you’ve joined our little organization.

First off let me personally welcome you into our fold, your profile was one of the many I judged from your class at the academy but despite your connections on your homeworld it was decided that approaching you would be an security risk as the politics you had a time were deemed too idealistic to understand the value our Section brings to the Federation.

I was so glad when our agents on the Cerritos reported you were willing to work with us, your proficiency on Ransom’s mission to Romulus caught us all a bit off-guard thus I am sure you have a bright future with us.

Now unto the briefing at hand ...

You know Starfleet at the protectors of the Federation and it’s values but you will soon learn that Starleet guards against only an overly narrow vector of attack, their holier-than-thou ideals leave them woefully ill-prepared to defend against a multitude of threats.

In this briefing we will discuss the alternate universe colloquially known as “The Mirror Universe” (MU),a threat that even if known Starfleet refuses to keep an eye on and be pro-active citing “The Prime Directive”.

The Cerritos ,due in particular to 3 crew-members, has been marked by us in Section 31 as being a ship of interest in regards to the MU, yes this is despite whatever you might have heard about “The Cerritos is the least important ship in SF” hence the need for this update about the MU to be your first briefing.

**A brief history of the MU**

_The exact evolution of humanity ,or terrans as they prefer to name themselves in the Mirror Universe, is still an mystery to us, what we do know is that by the time of First Contact despite the parallel wars their politics were completely different along with the culture thus the Vulcan vessel that landed to meet humanity was overrun (feared as being scouts of an alien invasion) and it’s technology stolen._

_With the aid of said technology humanity quickly advanced to the stars where it proceeded to conquer and enslave the Vulcans and other founding species of the Federation._

_In the 22nd century humanity now formally known as the Terran Empire was at it’s limit, external conquest was met with strong foes as internal rebellion by the alien races was tearing the homeland apart._

_The counterpart to our Captain Archer, most individuals in our Prime Universe (PU) have an counterpart but not all see Jake Sysko, managed to acquire what we now know to be a vessel from the PU but from the 23nd century._

_Armed with this supreme ship Mirror Archer quickly put down the rebellion and defeated his external foes but as so often is the case he fell to the inherent treachery of his inner circle._

_In his place Mirror Hoshi assumed control and founded a dynasty that would rule the invigorated empire for another century._

_While the events of the life of Emperor Georgiou are extraordinary and very relevant to our organization in particular we need to skip forward to the first official crossing over where Prime Kirk briefly switched places with his counterpart._

_This display of the effectiveness of a “soft ideology” by Prime Kirk and his away team led to the Mirror Spock accepting PU values as the only logical ones, left with the Enteprises resources he managed to climb to the position of Emperor._

_Under his enlightened, liberal rule and with more pacifist reforms the Empire crumbled being swiftly conquered by the next super-power The Klingon-Cardassian Alliance (KCA)._

_The Terrans as well as various races that had received greater standing in the Terran Empire (mainly Vulcans, Betazoids) were now enslaved in mass forced to work under pain of death in the service of the KCA._

_This was the state of humanity when another series of cross-universe incidents happened, emboldened by the senior crew of DS9 a Terran Rebellion was formed to oppose the KCA led mainly by the MU counterparts of said DS9 officers._

_When the dust settled the KCA was defeated and terrans were free to determine their own future._

_This is what the public knows and it is the truth, but due to our efforts we have knowledge of what has happened further in the MU including up to the present day._

_It is important to note that the Terran Empire didn’t completely fall to it’s enemies, it ended up as a rump state still clinging to it’s traditions in a few heavily fortified star systems including most notably Terra itself._

_This version of the Empire even as it was composed of some extraordinary officers the likes of MU Picard was content to stay on the defensive not daring to oppose the KCA even as it held the vast majority of humanity in thrall._

_The bloody campaign that ultimately ended with the liberation of all Terran slaves took a toll on the leaders of the rebellion, eventually only MU Miles O’Brien was left with the ability, will and reluctant duty to lead humanity._

_Under his leadership the Terran Rebellion (TR) now nominally made up out of every liberated human united with the surviving Terran Empire (TE)._

_In exchange for the logistic capabilities of the remaining TE worlds, shipyards, engineers and scientists, the members of the TR swore their allegiance to the Terran Empire of old._

_For their part the TE welcomed in dozens of new star systems, armies of veterans, legions of able bodied workers._

_Some of the TR took up their ancestral culture with great reluctance the KCA always having motivated it's brutal treatment of everyone born human with tales of the old Terrans great sins, those few humans and vulcan who did remember the pre-fall Empire never disputed the cruelties depicted in KCA propaganda. Others yet jumped in yearning to reclaim a sense of pride, accomplishment and agency._

_Likewise on the TE side there are some who are very reluctant they see their own power and positions shrinking in relative importance even as humanity once again becomes a player on the galactic stage. Other see the TR's attitudes and cultures not as a "slave mentality" or influenced by the other universe but a new practical less internal-divisive perspective which will allow the Empire to make itself glorious again._

_The result is a Terran Empire that while smaller than our Federation is vibrant, vigorous and ready to grow it’s power under the leadership of the newly and reluctantly crowned Emperor Miles as well as his court that despite his efforts is still made up mostly of old TE nobles and administrators._

Key people of interest on the Empire-wide scale:

**Emperor Miles of the House O’Brien**

The MU counterpart of the man you know from the Enterprise-D and DS9 official logs: solid, dependable, a good soldier and leader even if his highest desire is to tinker in peace.

Him being present from the inception of the TR has left him feeling a duty to safeguard the now liberated terrans.

He accepted the title of Emperor only under great duress and after it was clear that it would help both unification of the now split children of Terra and the morale of his own veterans.

Most notable change is that he is not married in the MU, thus his children do not exist or not yet at the moment, currently he is looking for a bride in order to found a true dynasty preferably one that will be accepted by his new court and/or one that will help him keep them in line.

**Keiko Ishikawa aka “The Terrible Beauty”**

In the interest of your understanding of the limits of the parallelism between the MU and PU, Keiko is a good case study while in our plane she is Keiko O’Brien the loving and supportive wife to Miles O’Brien, Mirror Keiko is a vicious terrorist who seems hellbent on assassinating Emperor O’Brien.

Mirror Miles likewise considers her the TE’s most wanted criminal, we have o idea how this sittuation came about since as far as we can tell the two have never met face to face

**Imperial Vizier Julian Bashir**

The casualties of their war for liberation has left him much more scarred and broken than his PU counterpart, his loyalty to Miles one of the few people he cares about has been a huge factor in Emperor O’Brien managing to rule so well in both civilian and military matters.

Now onto lower-ranked Imperial VIP who have their counterparts stationed aboard the Cerritos, thus warranting the special attention I have mentioned to you at the beginning:

**High Lord of Terra, Inquisitor Sam Rutherford**

This has gotten your attention, no ?

Part of a new generation of leaders who aim to bridge the gap between the TR and TE, he has with great gusto accepted the new titles offered by the Imperial Vizier in his play to even out the numbers in the Imperial Court.

His skills are mostly in medicine especially that of the mind and diplomacy though he shows a surprising affinity for starship command despite not being interested in a higher strategic level.

He lacks the Rutherford’s you know ability with engineering or fighting, in fact the title of Inquisitor would be best translated to our position of Counselor.

Not much is known of him except he is the sole surviving researcher in project B.A.D.G.E.Y. and he spent significant time in Orion space.

Rumors are that this haughty lord was a captive or a slave there before being rescued by his now best friend ...

**Admiralissimo Brad Boimler**

The Mirror counterpart to your friend Boimler is much more distinguished and successful, currently serving as the head of the entire Imperial Star Fleet.

While there is no doubt that his ascension to the title was motivated by political factors, Boimler is of the right age to have fought in some of the last battles between the KCA and TR but was also young enough to be a quick learner of the TE’s navy structure and doctrine, with no enemies on either the TR or TE side and no loyalties except to the cause he was an ideal candidate politically-speaking.

Which is ironic given how much he loathes politics, diplomacy, courtly intrigue and ass-kissing in general, he is frequently heard to bemoan having let himself be promoted beyond the rank of captain.

He also has a claim to deserving the title, despite being very young compared to some of his fellow flag officers he is acknowledged by everyone as being a strategic and tactical genius, employing chaos based ploys that confound every enemy he has faced.

Such is his dedication to chaos theory in military matters that he will always claim to be following rules strictly but not the lesser imperfect man-made rules.

The focuses of his tenure have been concentrated on building new classes of ships for the navy and waging campaigns of annexation that have brought many new worlds into the resurgent Empire.

Which leads us to his partner in crime in those efforts ...

**Lady Beckett Mariner**

A lady of the court and Empire’s most skilled diplomat at large, usually diplomacy is a lesser tool in the TE toolbox but her success as she strides the galaxy hanging on Boimler’s arm forcing planets to bend the knee has been noted in the Imperial Palace.

She comes from a old TE noble family ,her parents minor administrators, her youth allowed her a similar rise to Bradward’s but on the civilian side.

Beckett was given an opportunity to serve in the diplomatic corp even given the time of the Empire's top soldier to carry out her implied threats because she has both connections to the faction of old school TE nobles yet at the same time she is still young enough that she adapted and could work with the TR newcomers.

Her case would be interesting to study in more detail regarding the age-old nature vs nurture debate, is she the same Mariner you know but who grew up in different circumstances or is she a completely different creature wearing ensign Mariner’s face even as she spends her time plotting to increase her rank and position and ass-kissing in high society ?

Most planets after being visited by the Empire’s premier soldier/diplomat work pairing are left with the impression that Boimler and Mariner are lovers of some sorts.

Surely she wouldn’t flirt so heavily and obviously with him nor constantly be on his arm or in his lap if that were not the case ?

Yet our efforts to probe into the nature of this relationship so as to complete our psychological profiles of these two TE VIPs haven't succeed yet, our sympathizers who managed to get Mariner to talk about Boimler were given nothing except an incredibly long and lie filled conversation that dodged the question completely, attempting to talk to the admiral about his lady companion has only resulted in rage and threats of violence. 

...

Your counterpart does not have a file with us, that is not to say she doesn’t exist only that she isn’t involved enough with the Terran Empire for information about her to filter back to us.

...


	20. House of Boimler Part V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well wishes continue to arrive for the newly weds from co-workers and old friends alike. Boimler finally gets his bachelor party. A package comes from home.
> 
> Specials: Nothing just a regular chapter.

**Beckett Mariner**

We finally got to the bridge, managing to shake our nose-y commute partners three decks behind as they needed to get to the deflector.

Some of those 3 decks looked like we would get into a totally-not-lovers quarrel about the whole “I’m Mariner’s property” badge thing but then I reminded him we actually had bridge duty today and not repair bay duty which shook him to the core enough that he dropped the argument.

Boimler never forgot what tasks he had assigned, being married made him sloppy apparently.

Lucky for him he has an wife to remind him ... lucky for me I have a genial husband with a sense of humor about marking him and that sort of things.

First thing we saw when we got to the deck were Tendi and Sam, who were manning the Environment and Ops stations respectively, they both waved and there was something in Tendi’s small squeal that told me we should get drinks together later just us girls.

The Orion squeal alerted Billups, who had the conn, about our entrance, he stood up from his chair and with a big smile on his face gave us some light applause.

Immediately everyone was joining in.

“Congratulations to the newlyweds !!! I hope you two fine ensigns have wonderful and long marriage, one that reflects the obvious love between the two of you ... the love that gave you the strength to take his huge step.”

Kind of corny but me and Brad holding hands helped sell the image.

I didn’t even notice we were holding hands until we needed to part to take up our stations.

Keep it together Beckett no matter what Billups might say this marriage has a shelf life of 6 months and is strictly based on me not going back to the killing and rape filled prison-planet.

As if reading my mind after the applause stopped and everyone was seated again I heard Billups say to himself in a much lower, less chipper tone:

“Kind of young to be tying the knot ... but what do I know ? Better too young than wasting your life climbing the career ladder ... always telling yourself you’ll stop when you find someone ... and realizing after 40 that no one is coming because no one cares.”

It might have been my imagination but I could swear I heard the sound of a tear drop hitting the metal floor of the bridge, I didn’t dare to turn around and confirm.

I bet no one cared enough to lift their eyes from their screen and see for themselves.

My eyes darted to Brad who was as frozen as myself, for a split second he seemed older about 15 years older, thinner with the start of gray hair and with a mustache like Billups’s.

I knew if I looked forward, into the view screen I wouldn’t see my own reflection but my subconscious fears playing out on the glass.

So I kept my head down and stared into the console.

...

We got back to our quarters, fortunately without another encounter with the neighbors, Tendi and I promised to go out for some tacos at the cafeteria then a few shots of tequila immediately after at the bar.

Brad had his own bookworm thing to do so he just wished me fun, it was still weird sharing a cabin with someone and we were kind of getting in each other’s way preparing, but I hope that will soon pass.

For some reason something an old friend from my previous ship said came to mind “A husband or a live-in boyfriend you’ve got to think of them as a lover but more importantly as a roommate, they need to hit both benchmarks.”

Our view screen erupted into video and sound.

“Beckett !!! Why I’d never thought I’d see this day ... Getting married ... you do know you’ve cost me multiple bars of gold pressed latinum from like 10 bets combined.”

Ramsey was in a good mood, if I did have to choose someone from my past to call me up about the marriage she would definitely have been #1.

“Oh yeeah dad did mention you were his taxi getting him here from Earth.Guess who isn’t allowed to leave orbit until my bachelorrete party is over ?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, ... I also might have pushed the engines a teensy bit too hard and they might need some repairs ... Durga’s on my case about it ... XO gotta XO I guess.”

Amina’s eyes shifted and I realized Boimler was sort of awkwardly trying to do his own thing getting ready, I had forgot to introduce him.

“So here he is !!!” she said in a congratulatory tone “The one and only man who could tame the ... the ... The Beckett“ I stuck out my tongue at her but in a very adult and serious manner.

“So uhm hello Bradward Boimler here ... oh shit you’re a captain ???“

I must be a good influence on Brad since he didn’t immediately notice her rank, he first noticed she was one sexy beautiful lady. God I hope he wouldn’t go into kiss-ass mode that would be so awkward.

I would have expected them to recognize each other but I guess since Amina booted him from the bridge immediately and then he spent most of his time while she was in command off on that hospital ship they never got a chance to get to know each other.

“So you two know each other from the Academy ?” Brad guessed, at least he didn’t start kissing her ass, man had a bit of dignity. But I so didn’t want to get into me and Amina’s thing from back in the day, right now since I’m tirred I allready promised to go out with Tendi.

“Yes and then we ... we stayed friends.” she finished with a wink, must have read my mood and evaded that topic for now.

It’s not like it’s some huge secret, I’ll tell Brad about it some other time ... maybe I need to get him hard in a hurry sometime ...

OH MY GOD What am I thinking ?

Bad thoughts, bad thoughts ... what is being married doing to me I used to be so good at making sure I never felt anything around Boimler.

“So Beckett your party ? Only at the finest and most expensive Klingon strip club I guess ?”

“Heh honestly I don’t know ... Lady Sirella strong armed her way into organizing everything for my party and Martok is doing the same for Boimler’s shindig.”

“Both parties are theoretically categorized as VIP events by the embassy here due to Martok and Sirella’s presence.” Boimler added.

“Swanky !” Ramsey noted with her cute accent and a grin.

But now that I think about it something was off about where she was calling from, she was on a bed, in her uniform pants and a tank top so she was decent for the call, but that did not look like Amina’s taste in decorating even if it was annoyingly familiar.

“Yo Amina ? Where you calling from ? I see shelves upon shelves of free weights behind you ... “

“Uhm ... well you see ... gotta go ! Call you latter Mariner and you’ll give the details on your party and your new husband ... Love you both haveAGreatRelathionship !!!”

It felt good to see that at least the universe didn’t turn upside down JUST in my case.

...

* * *

**Bradward Boimler**

The days had a way of going so fast as if everything was a blur and now my bachelor party was tonight.

Beckett must have sensed my apprehension about the coming mess, surely I’d say/do something stupid and Martok will need to declare war over it or even worse I mess up in front of Ransom and there go my chances of ever getting promoted, and she was acting a way I never quite seen her before.

Clearly she was worried about me.

But at the same time she didn’t have any practical knowledge to fall back on she could quote to me.

“Hey NERD finally going to see the inside of a strip club ?”

Or maybe I was an idiot for expecting her to so attuned to my fears and feelings.

“It’s actually going to be a deeply symbolic and mystical experience I am honored to be going through this ceremonies with the chancellor himself no less, without being Klingon myself.” I tried to give the proper gravitas to the event.

“UHH you know they’ll basically be beating you half-to-death with clubs and mumble something about honor and that dead first emperor guy ?” she said rolling her eyes.

“DON’T YOU THINK I KNOW THAT ?? BUT I CAN’T BACK OUT !!!” I practically scream as I get so into her face we’re millimeters away from kissing.

Ugh what has living with her done to me ? I used to keep a respectable distance and not jump people ... at least I can’t remember doing this to anyone but Mariner.

“Chill man with all our bathle’th practice on the holodeck your stamina and pain tolerance is higher than ever, you can pull it off.” she says her hands on my shoulders in a gesture of solidarity.

“Ugh don’t remind me about those ... “ I say without thinking.

Beckett’s mood instantly changes, I guess she was really having fun in them and I LIKE THEM TOO but ...

She’s looking like a wounded kitten right now, I’ve hurt her with my thoughtless remark, she’ll jump back soon and hide the pain under some sarcasm but I don’t want that.

“I love your bathle’th sessions ... “ cue disbelieving stare given my previous words “ it’s just ... “

Just that we always end up with the swords locked and face to face, in those moments it takes all of my goddamned willpower not to kiss you and tear that Klingon armor off your body and have my way with you. I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to restrain myself one moment soon if we continue with them.

“I’m not really feeling the music in the background ... “

“OHH yeah that makes sense so I got the whole set of exercise programs from Worf and you know he hard-coded the background music to be his favorite operas. No worry it shouldn’t take too much coding to put something decent it there ... What would you want ? ... and don’t say violin ... “

“Uhmm I don’t know ...”

“Come on don’t hold back from me ! It’s got to be something bold something that makes your blood run faster, something that evokes both fun and speaks to your soul ... “

“Ahh like the theme song to a ‘A pup named Toby Targ’ !” I said the first thing that came to mind to Beckett, she’ll probably already have it being such a huge Toby fan.

“WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY ? We don’t mention that abomination of a show in this house !!!”

“Come on ... I know it’s not the original series and it’s aimed at a younger audience but it was fun and had a catchy theme song ... “

“An abomination ! A heresy ! It should be stricken from the canon for defiling my childhood !!” Mariner was getting more and more worked up.

“For fuck’s sake neither of us was alive when the original series ran, and how can it ruin your enjoyment of all the other Toby shows ?”

“Retroactively ... now repent your indiscretion with that vile show or I’ll be a widow soon enough !!”

“Yeeaaah it is about time I get ready for my party ... wish me luck !”

“Well good, if that’s the hill you want to die on, then good luck at your party ... I HOPE YOU DON’T COME BACK BOIMS ... DON’T YOU SARCASTIC VULCAN SALUTE ME ... I’LL BE ONE SEXY WIDOW !!!” I could hear Mariner’s screaming as I made my way to the turbo lift.

My mind was tying itself in knots imagining the beatings and rituals I would be going through.

A method I’d noticed works for me to quiet my thoughts was to try and focus on another harder to answer question and just sort of run on auto-pilot especially through the beatings.

A question like: Was Mariner also a screamer in bed ?

...

I entered our quarters exhausted and defeated to find Mariner on our bed looking at a video on her PADD, she had a shift she was scheduled for why was she not asleep ... did she stay up worried about me ?

“How was it ? Did you have fun ?” she said with I think a bit of worry in her voice I was obviously disheveled.

“Uhhh the worst ... “ I couldn’t help but whine.

She patted the bed beckoning me to her, and as soon as I sat down she went to work getting these Klingon ceremonial robes off of me.

But to my disappointment I realized she was looking at my bruises as she began to take out a first aid kit and asking me for more details.

“The group picture we got at the start but was the highlight of the night ... but man o man isn’t it a great picture ?” I couldn’t help but get some of my spirit back as she rubbed some sort of soothing cream into the bruises that Bashir already worked on.

I sent her the picture to her PADD.

“Jesus talk about an Enterprise-D reunion: Worf, Riker Picard ... I guess the two of them got summoned here to try and apply a bit of diplomatic pressure before all of this was solved by our plan. Hey look there’s also O’Brien what was he doing here, do you know him ?”

“Actually he was a friend of Worf and Dr. Bashir ... ok so you know how Worf is House of Martok well his deceased wife was also part of the house ... but his wife was a joined Trill the symbiot was passed to a woman named Ezri (you’ll see her at your party) who technically is still part of the house but anyway she is definitely friends with all of them ... Ezri is with Dr. Bashir now so he got invited to my party.”

“Mhh ok thanks for the heads up, Sam is of course there and you invited our senior officers what about those two ?”

“Lt. Paris has a quarter Klingon daughter she was here with his wife for some pediatric checkup, they’re all Star Fleet you know so they got tapped to see if they could provide any insight into your legal problems they were on the embassy team and Lt Kim is a friend of their family ... they all served on Voyager actually so kind of a big deal !!”

“Woopie you got your star studded selfie, hope that makes you more promotable honey.”

I gave her another sarcastic Vulcan salute.

“So this is all from the standard beating ... I mean very official and sacred ceremony ?” Mariner snarked rolling her eyes.

“I uhh I didn’t finish it ... I was I think at my 30th club to the belly when I couldn’t handle the pain anymore and I started vomiting ... since I’m human they ruled that it was enough and the ceremony was done but it was horrible.”

I continued recounting my shame.

“Everyone then broke up into little groups discussing their own interests but everyone kept looking at me and judging me for not measuring up ... Martok, Riker, Paris, Ransom and Shax started discussing tactics and politics ... O’Brien was answering all sorts of engineering questions and sharing stories with Rutherford, Kim and Billups ... Bashir was working on me trying to patch me up while Worf was silently judging me ... Andand ... “

“There I was my personal hero Picard focused just on how I was doing and all I could do was vomit everything I had in my stomach trying to remain awake !!!”

“There there, JLP he won’t admit it to not hurt Worf’s feelings but he’s also fed up with all this Klingon BS ... did he give you a nice speech to cheer you up ?” I couldn’t tell if she was actually trying to be supportive and nice or she was mocking me ... probably a mix of both.

“Well he did tell me I was a braver man than he was ... for marrying you.”

“Uhhhm at least I can say I’ve managed to terrify Picard, that puts me on the same level as the entire Borg Collective !!” Beckett took it in good fun.

“So how can I put this ?” I didn’t know I could still feel dread this night but she managed to do it “ I, you ... WE got another package after you left ... I guess you recognize this ... “ she placed a wedding ring in my hand.

It was a platinum-gold alloy, the gold extracted from the Boimler family’s native country of Brazil it was forged into a Claddagh Fede design to reflect the numerous members of the Boimler clan that had made Ireland their home.

It held two gemstones, again for symbolic reasons, emerald to represent Ireland and topaz for Brazil.

This and it’s paired rings belonged to my Nana, since grandpa had died so long ago she had always mentioned when I found my bride she would send the rings to me, if we wanted to use them.

But if Nana knows that means ...

“Did this come with a long holo-message which involved a lot of outrage and screaming for me ?”

“Yep your mom is quite the screamer ...” Beckett didn’t understand why I winced at her phrasing “ ... you said you wouldn’t tell your family about us ?” her question hung in the air as if it had some secret meaning giving it more power.

“I didn’t ... it’s not like they would be snooping on me ... they have their own lives mom is a judge and a professor of law, dad is a mid-level clerk and local politician ... oh fuck the embassy must have sent word to all legal experts Mom might have been part of the team of scholars who had to determine if our wedding does give you enough legal protection ...”

“Your mom INSISTS we all have a subspace-call as soon as possible so they get to meet me ... judge you say ? ... can I hope she’s not one of those especially judge-y judges ?”

“HahHaHaHa ... no ... ok look on the bright side if they sent us the rings they still think me and you are a real thing ... so if we play our cards well during the call maybe this whole charade won’t come crumbling down.”

“Come on, you’re acting as if she’d blow the lid on us just on principle.” Beckett said plainly.

“You don’t know my mom ... before she was a judge and a professor she was an activist she has very strong views on the rule of law and about how Star Fleet in general is not held responsible enough time for their screw-ups ... if she knows for a fact this is a lie that her son is helping a Star Fleet officer pervert justice and evade a lawful ruling even from the Klingons ... she’d go to the press she’d write a open letter to the Federation Council ...“

“Okay okay I get it you got your fetish for rules from her. Just my luck.”

“Uhmm when you started mentorin ... when we started hanging out in earnest I looked into your record, obviously not far enough to discover your parents but I was curious about all the ships and missions ... I noticed while on the Quito you were part of the away team for the infamous Rixus VII incident .. “

“Yeah what a shit show that was ... one little civilian yacht gets some paint ruined on the hull and ... we need a civilian trial bla bla bla I was lucky my dad called in a favor and got the head of Star Fleet JAG himself to represent me and throw the case back into our system else that civilian witch ... “

“Aka my mom ... “ Mariner winced and started an apology “ it’s fine I’ll let it slide this time ... and I know she can be uncompromising.”

“I guess we’ll just have to get damn good at faking it.” she said and put her hand upon mine, which wouldn’t have been bad but we were already so close together.

God, think of something ... anything ... evade your own feelings.

“Hey I wonder how will the ring look on someone’s hand ?” wrong choice.

Mariner hesitated for a split second which to me for some reason felt like an eternity, and then without a word slipped me the ring and extended her hand.

It was a good thing we both knew this relationship was a lie, else as I put the ring on her finger the feeling of fate that was coursing through us both would have chocked us.

* * *

On the next episode to thine own self be true.

_**Mirror Match Part I** _

“I’m analyzing the ship, it’s no configuration that we know off but it’s clearly based on the Defiant design ... it just seems to be enlarged, it has as many decks as a Galaxy class with a proportional increase in weapons, warp core capability, shields ... several of the weapons seem to be varieties on banned weapon designs ... sensor scans suggest just two human life signs for crew ?”

...

“See ? We’re basically the same man ... he is proof I have the potential for being a captain ... “

...

“I AM NOTHING LIKE YOU !!!”


	21. Short: Emergency abstinence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mariner, now 40 and having left Starfleet, wakes up the owner of one new Kaplan F17 Speed Freighter.
> 
> Special: AU, Time-skip, Implied|Off-screen sex
> 
> Initially posted on my tumblr but I liked the concept and thought it worked as a short.

Aww my head, that was such a bender but I did it, I crossed the threshold, I survived to turn the big 40.

Ha ha suck it Bradward, look who managed to not die and even put away enough latinum to buy my own ship before reaching 40.

Ok I did it yesterday so I literally was on the edge of losing my little self-imposed challenge but I did it, I have to thank Rios for pointing me to that shipyard … good prices even if they couldn’t tell a veteran space adventurer from a newbie wanting a pleasure yacht.

Pfft like I was going to pay 20% extra for those clowns to do the setup for me, didn’t they see that I’m as Starfleet as they come, like I couldn’t use a hidro-spanner or code up some hologram AI.

That latinum saved there allowed for the truly awe-inspiring birthday bash, everyone in the bar loved me like family … it wasn’t like they just said so because I kept ordering drinks.

“The ships sensors indicate a hospitality emergency, would you like to hear what anti-hangover medication we have available ?” a voice I hadn’t heard in years spoke.

My head shot up from the pillow on my new bed, in my new cabin … in my new ship … suck it Boimler, to take a look at the Emergency Hospitality Hologram (EHH).

An AI who had the holographic voice and body of Boimler, wearing that stupid dress uniform the one from when we got lost together trying to escort a VIP to the embassy … looking just like he did when we were so young .. the stupid uniform he probably got married in.

How drunk was I last night that I coded and modeled this ???

I angrily waved it away and summoned the Emergency Medical Hologram (EMH).

Sure enough Tendi, the same age she was when I met her on the Cerritos, popped into being wearing her ensign/nurse uniform.

I kept her around enough to cure my hangover, she looked so young back then.

Not to say she didn’t look great, healthy and happy from the photos I occasionally received.

Motherhood really lent her a certain poise and elegance.

I called up the ship’s holo console in my room and saw I had somehow … while blackout drunk … to code 6 holos:

Name | Description | Roles  
---|---|---  
ENV | Emergency Navigation Hologram | First Officer,XO  
ETS | Emergency Tactical Hologram | Security, Tactical, Gunner  
EMH | Emergency Medical Hologram | CMO, Nurse  
EEH | Emergency Engineering Hologram | Chief Engineer  
EHH | Emergency Hospitality Hologram | Diplomat, Counselor  
ELH | NULL | NULL, NULL, NULL  
  
Calling up the EEH brought forth an young Rutherford.

There must be some hidden benefits in being wholesome, the only change I could notice from the real Rutherfod I had seen in the pictures playing with his half-Orion kids was that the real deal had a slight dad bod which his hologram lacked.

I was dreading seeing Ransom’s chiseled handsome face as I activated the ENV, instead my eyes became bloodshot from rage as Brad in his regular ensign uniform asked me politely about my orders.

“Go find an black hole and throw yourself in !!!” the computer understood this as a request to deactivate.

I seemed to have at least a bit of sense even while inebriated as the security hologram was myself, ok myself dressed as Vindicta dual-wielding disruptors and with a bath’leth on my back.

God those were some fun times .. in the scenario I built on Brad's code .. “Close ETH !!!”

I knew I shouldn’t start it up, the ELH (what the hell could that acronym stand for ??) was probably some half-way done bug-ridden thing I collapsed last night before completing it, this was the most likely scenario given that it didn’t have any labels explaining it’s purpose.

It could potentially trigger a cascade-fault in the computer system thereby causing the warp core to breach or just leave me floating in space to die slowly (I had no idea if I was still in orbit, vague memories of me wanting to just go into deep space and be alone crept up) … yep it could definitely kill me …

I activated it.

Oh fuck me not another Boimler, this one was not dressed like I had ever seen the real Brad dress himself … maybe … yeah he was wearing the leather half of the outfit he tried to impress Barb with (obviously as a full normal ensemble) … yeah those are his ‘cool guy’ sunglasses from that day …

“This is the Emergency Lover Hologram please state the nature of your sexual emergency … “ he said in a husky tone as he unbuckled his pants.

Fuck me … I’M NEVER DRINKING AGAIN !!!


	22. High School Never Ends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Four years you think for sure that's all you think you have to endure.
> 
> Special: High School, Flashback 
> 
> Warning includes dangerous amounts of nostalgia and dangerous amounts of romantic wish fulfillment around the ending. 
> 
> Happy Valentine's Day 2021 !

Stupid Tendi and Rutherford ... stupid being obvious to their mutual attraction ... always needing to stay on the same side of the booth in the cantina.

I wouldn’t normally care or resent them for it but since The Betrayer transferred back from the Titan and we started going out as a group again, Tendi and Rutherford’s need to be physically close to each other and I don’t know “accidentally” keep touching each other or something ... this meant I had to sit next to The Betrayer.

Just look at him, with his smug expression and purple hair which you just know it would be sooo silky to run my hands through it, sitting here besides me and eating from his bowl of chips.

Chips of betrayal ... I grab another handful of them, daring him with my eyes to say anything.

He remains silent, like the coward that he is, he’ll probably lack adequate nutrition from all me food theft. Probably won’t have enough energy to do all his “lieutenant level assignments”.

Serves him right.

Or maybe I’m looking at things in a completely wrong manner ...

Maybe I should let him eat all his chips that would increase the odds he chokes on one of them, can’t breathe and dies right here while I watch.

Ha Ha Ha what a delicious thought.

“Ahem and that’s why the ceremony is so important for our culture on Orion ... “ Tendi said looking directly at me.

Oh shit did I really start laughing out loud ?

“It’s happening right now 10 February in your Earth calendar for the current generation including my cousins ...wellSorry I bored you with my culture ... I’m just reallyProud ... that all my community gathered together and acknowledged my transition to adulthood.”

She’s uncomfortable now due to my sudden outburst ... great I’m such a douche.

Rutherford is giving me a well deserved stink eye, besides lightly touching her knee or whatever it is wholesome future-boyfriends do, he also tries to keep the conversation moving.

“That was interesting ... I guess the closest equivalent in Earth culture would be the proms a lot of high schools organize when you finish them and you are ready to go to college ... man our prom was so cool we held it at the beach it had a local traditions theme ... I was part of the team that did the technical aspects music, lights, holos etc ... it really was a magical night.”

“Oo sounds really nice ... how was your prom Mariner ?” Tendi asked me, now eager to learn something new about Earth.

Too bad Earth was a pretty alien place to me.

“We didn’t have them on the Enterprise-D, the ship had a big civilian population relatively speaking but there wasn’t really enough teens especially my age that a prom would make sense.” I responded trying to keep my tone neutral.

“Hmm were you sad you missed out ? Were there enough kids your age that you had friends ?” Tendi continued.

Seriously are you so naive, or is this some form of payback twisting the knife ?

“I just want to know ... “ the Orion kept pressing.

“My prom was kind of generic, so ask me to get the a more standardized view, it was also hella boring ... “ Brad swooped in to save me from needing to answer.

He was absolutely right, from how he described it his prom was painfully generic so much so that I think even Tendi lost interest before me from his retelling.

Not that it was much of a retelling.

The music was what was popular that year.

The food was generic fancy.

Some people got drunk some people did stupid stuff.

Everyone was in tuxedos and dresses.

It almost sounded like he wasn’t even there, no personal anecdotes whatsoever, just a bird’s eye view of everything.

No wonder our group conversation drifted to some other topic, but some sadistic part of me wanted to have gotten a better idea of what a prom was like.

4 days later, 4 blissfully free of thinking about how I was as a teen later, I finished my shift and returned to my bunk.

After saying the now traditional “I hope you get eaten by an Arnus” greeting to Boimler’s empty bunk, I climbed up into my own to see a surprise waiting for me.

A standard issue data-rod on my pillow, next to it a note.

“I know this doesn’t heal things between us, I got the impression you were curious as well what a prom is like. Hope this holo-simulation answers your questions.”

Boimler’s hand writing was tidy, just as I expected from such a huge rules-obsessed dork.

This wasn’t the first attempt he’d made at mending bridges since he’d returned from the Titan, it was honestly equally insulting that he could both leave me and afterwards think I could forgive him.

I played with the rod in my hands, it’s glassy material caught the light in a strange manner almost as if it was some artifact containing great evil and danger, just waiting to be released by some fool.

Fuck it I had nothing better to do, if my study of “normal human” social interactions taught me anything Boimler’s prom night probably included him getting his head shoved in a toilet by the football team.

And that was worth seeing.

The location, Modesto High School, did seem generic as per Bradward’s promises, a building in the standard post-WW3 United Earth Revival architecture.

There were signs everywhere guiding all the guests from the graduating class of 2373 to the gym where the prom was taking place.

The Academy had in many ways been a new frontier for me, I had jumped from a small classroom of peers to an huge campus of fellow cadets, which made this prom such a weird experience for me the graduating senior looked and acted more like the kids of the Enteprise-D but they were swarming around me in numbers I was only used to at the Academy.

It was a kind of weird the worst of both worlds.

A couple was taking selfies just outside the gym were most people were, so I decided to use them to test just how thoroughly Brad had coded this simulation.

“How do you do fellow kids ?” I tried to ask as casually as possible

My reply was a couple of shrieks followed eventually by some manic talking:

“OMG Mariner is talking to us !!!”

“You know me ? Are we friends ?”

“Oh no heavens no, we’re waaaay waaaaay under you on the social ladder but everyone knows Beckett Mariner, the smartest, strongest, most beautiful student at Modesto High School.” the girl informed me.

“You have 2 fendi purses, and a silver lexis, your hair is insured for five thousand bars of latinum, you do shuttle commercials ... on Andoria.” she continued.

Great so Brad had programmed in a persona for me in this scenario ...

“You’re head of both the Mathletes and the handball team.” the guy also offered.

Close it was swimming and I only really picked it up towards the end of my time on the Enterprise and close to when I entered the Academy.

“Anyway, I’m looking for my ... friend ... Bradward Boimler ... “ to dunk his head in the toilet or pants him in front of his date “ do you by any chance know where he is ?”

Their impressions both froze for a micro-second, the computer was running the numbers on whether what were essentially minor NPC knew who the hell I was talking about.

“No, we haven’t seen him around. He’s the captain of the chess team right ?”

“Honey, Boimler is that weird artsy kid that is head of the pottery club.”

Frustrated I took off, the simulation was realistic enough I had to give Bradward that, there were no glaring bugs or un-modeled zones every NPC seemed to have at least some basic AI running it, but I just couldn’t get into it ...

I needed to track Boimler down and see how the dork looked in highschool and what he wore to his prom.

Finally after resetting the simulation a couple of times I just consigned myself to the fact that the purple haired coward didn’t include himself.

So still unable to get into the spirit of the prom, or maybe there was too much teenage hormones and horny-ness in the air for anyone to get comfortable, I pulled up the developer tools for the holodeck and began dissecting the scenario itself.

As I suspected:

A few events, fights, teachers throwing certain students out, certain couples dancing at the end of the night were pre-programmed but most of them were simulations i.e. the NPC would fight, make out, get drunk etc basically randomly but tied to their AI models.

Most party goers had very basic models and those that did also had very generic clothes, again randomly generated to fit the scenario.

The guys were wearing generic tuxes most of them while the girls were wearing generic dresses.

I couldn’t help but think to my own choice of wardrobe, even if Brad had not programmed everyone here to fawn over me, I’m pretty sure I would have turned all of the heads dressed as I was.

I was wearing a tight leopard print dress showing off my figure, the dress also had a generous keyhole neckline.

Certainly not something the real me would have worn to a prom back then, for reasons of my chubby figure and other motives but I thought what the hell this was a solo holo scenario why not dress in something more flashy that I normally would ?

Going back to the comparatively more plainly dressed AI which were all around me everyone had real names, Brad had data-mined the school’s records for the names and basic personality AI, I think he also used social media for a secondary data-set to enhance them ... but ...

Aha ... certain more special characters had unique clothes and more advanced AI, better modeled because more data and time was poured into their models, they mostly seemed to be clustered in the 3D Chess Club and the Pottery Guild.

There we go hidden deep into the resources folder for this scenario I found some pictures, they seemed to be the seeds from which Boimler and the holodeck reconstituted the prom night.

More concerning was that each picture was personally addressed to Brad and featured a personal message tied to the photo, they seemed to have been extracted from a private chat between him and the people who sent his the pictures.

“Hey captain, sorry you can’t be here ... hope you get well soon! George and the rest of your friends from the 3D Chess team.” was written bellow the picture of a tall stocky teen with black hair and glasses who was surrounded by fellow nerds all of them wearing lapels in the shape of chess pieces.

Great team spirit I guess ... either that or it was actually a cult masquerading as a chess team.

“The prom is a blast, me and everyone in the pottery club wish you could make it ... don’t worry there’s plenty of other fish in the sea. xoxo Oana”

The plot thickens ... while the sender of the pic, a short latina looking girl gave me a sort of flirty vibe, in the pic she was surrounded by what I assume was the rest of the Pottery Guild or Club or whatever they called themselves, everyone was wearing broaches or lapels which seemed to be stylized potter’s wheels. So this wasn’t exactly a note from a girl interested in him.

The final personal picture was from a group of teachers, it was signed by a serious looking bald gentleman who identified himself as Brad’s Physics professor, again urging him to take care of himself since he had exams coming up and he didn’t want one of his best pupils to blow his future.

Looking at the code and finding their stats each of them seem to have hand-crafted models so presumably I had 3 leads in here who definitely know something about Brad.

* * *

Somehow I knew when my PADD ping-ed about a new message, that it would be from Mariner.

Life was funny like that, after I had went to the Titan I couldn’t get her out of my hair my inbox inundated daily with angry messages from her, I had thought she would get over it and we would eventually normalize to a sane level of communication, two friends who were now serving on different ships.

After I eventually realized were I needed to be and where I wanted to be was actually on the Cerittos I knew it would be a rough first encounter with Beckett, that I’d need to eat some crow and probably a few punches to the gut.

What actually happened was complete 180 on her part the moment she laid her eyes on me, suddenly I wasn’t worth one second of her time let alone a message.

It was brutally effective, it still is. There is still much to learn from the senior staff here, a lot of challenges and opportunities for my career and hanging out with Rutherford and Tendi is a blast again but Mariner’s complete refusal to interact with me is tearing me up inside.

The prom holo was just the last of multiple attempts to reach out and re-build the bridges.

I could tell from her expression when Tendi pressed about her “high school” experience that there wasn’t anything she really wanted to re-visit and yet she had been even more interested in my retelling of my prom than our Orion friend had been.

So the holo had seemed to be a good idea give her a glimpse on something I think Mariner wished she could have seen, even if I hated every second of working on it and testing it out.

As the hours since I left the rod for her passed, my heart had sunk that it would be another failure.

But now for the first time there was a message from her, this is it maybe she’ll complain and Freeman will kick me from the ship, maybe she’ll just be clear that she wants nothing to do with me, maybe maybe ...

“Get your but down here in Holodeck 3, Badgey has gotten loose and he’s holding me hostage. He’s making himself prom king and wants me for his queen !!!”

Oh shit !! Shit ! Shit !

I sprinted to the holodeck but as I ran and shoved fellow officers out of my way, a few questions came to mind:

How did Badgey get out ?

Didn’t they delete him ?

Why is the targeting Mariner instead of Rutherford ?

How did Mariner get enough access to call me ?

Why is she calling me instead of Rutherford or one of the senior crew ?

As I entered the holodeck and there was no malevolent anthropomorphised badge in sight, I accepted something else was going on.

Eventually I spotted Mariner chit chatting with George and Oana without a care in the world.

As I made my way over I felt the tinge of embarrassment for retconing in stuff into the scenario, but since I was invited to their wedding next summer I think retconing them as dating when in reality they had gone to the prom alone or with other people wasn’t the worst thing ever.

“Hey ! Where’s the emergency ?” I say as greeting.

“The punch is weak, the music is embarrassing and ... “ Mariner stopped clearly hesitating in finishing her thought.

“Ha ha in my defense this is how it actually went down. I guess when we were young and many of us in love these songs hit a lot harder.”

“You look ... “ I continued all pretense of danger cast aside.

How could I put this to her ? I’m having actual trouble coming up with words due to her dress blocking my higher brain functions.

You look very boobies, gazongas, melons ...

“You look stunning.” I managed to eek out some words.

A slight smile and a (I hope it is) flirtatious wink are Beckett’s reply.

“You don’t really fit in here with your uniform ... Doesn’t your old tux still fit you ? “ I look away which apparently is all the confirmation she needs “ You didn’t come to your own prom, did you ?” her voice is full of sadness and empathy but the fact that the secret was out made her words painful all the same.

“NoI ... no.” I manage to spit it out keeping my voice kind of steady.

“Your friends and the photos kind of already gave it away.” her eyes are beckoning me to confess.

“Do you really want to hear this ?” I want to make sure.

“I have an Arnus simulation that I prepared some time ago that might loosen your lips ... or I might just decide to invent my own story about what happened.”

How could I explain this to her ?

A high school is a sort of isolated society, and a rigidly structured one at that, a relationship wasn’t a partnership you had with an equal it was a statement about your worth.

There were never any equals if you looked with enough scrutiny if you weighed all the facts in each relationship one person was above and one person was bellow. The pressure was on the person who deep down knew she could do better.

Introduce an extra element into the system of equations, in my case a douche-y foreign exchange student from England and a whole chain of events happens, a couple breaks it off, the person that is dumped searches out for someone else for the prom, that person had somebody else who now they need to get a partner etc etc.

Final equation is 2 weeks before the prom what seemed to me to be a good healthy relationship was actually a case of “I can do better”.

The chain also ended with me as even if I theoretically had lower status people I could break up or whatever I was too depressed to do anything.

“I got dumped before the prom.” was what I ended up going with.

“Some of the messages implied you were sick or ... “ I could only guess this wasn’t fun for Beckett either but she was concerned even if it was all in the past.

“You know me, my sand condition my eye condition ... I don’t have a very good health on my best days it was trivial to fake something to get out of going to prom.”

Mariner was biting her lip now, thinking something over if I knew her.

And really the whole move to the Titan and back proved I didn’t know her enough, I caused her pain and her well deserved cold shoulder she’d been given me proved I underestimated how much I wanted her ... her ... her companionship.

She’ll probably ask me more about my ex, was she here, did I ever speak to her again, how long was I heart broken.

Normal questions, but I couldn't help but dread going back to that incident again after I had moved on with my life in Star Fleet new friends, new loves.

“Besides the god-damn awful music and tacky dresses ... “ she started hesitantly

“Do you want the truth or do you want artistic license ? Because if you can’t handle the truth ... “

“I also understand that the last dance is an important tradition but I can’t find anyone here to have it with ?” she finished looking me in the eye, a slight smile on her lips but I could tell it was also a bit forced like she was unsure of how I would answer.

Every man here had been specifically programmed by me to want to dance with her, so I understood what she didn’t want to ask directly.

I gently took her hand in mine and we made our way to the dance floor, forcing the program to fast forward to the couple’s slow dance.


	23. Short: Children of the revolution Part III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Freeman has a few opinions to share about her daughter's latest activities.
> 
> Special: Swearing (I know with the age rating of this story it's not something I need to mention but I usually do the swears as BEEPs to match the show but here it didn't work with the tone)

I had just finished giving instructions to the med team that would assemble at my orders when we beam up.

Extra nurses, including one that had written her thesis on maternal care, were summoned to the med bay, when I joined Shax and Ransom on this away team I had tried to prepare myself both intellectually as a medic and emotionally as an officer for whatever scenario we would encounter.

Mariner being pregnant I must admit was never in our scenarios.

Boimler being the father at the same time seemed like one of those stories where you’re waiting for the punchline AND one of those pieces of gossip you need absolutely no proof because you already feel that it makes sense.

I also requested for the counselor to be on standby, but the the ensigns would only go see him once I’m satisfied with their physical well-being.

Before that if Mariner had questions about her options with the baby I was able to answer.

Given how far along she was into the pregnancy, Mariner was outside of the limits where she could abort.

Both she and the child were healthy so there were no scenarios where we would need to consider the health of the mother vs the health of the child.

Legally she was in interesting waters, I have no doubt she conceived the child willingly but she did so in the mental state of “Marine” whether or not Beckett consented was as much philosophy, morality, ethics.

I preferred to stay away from that minefield I much prefer the hard sciences, if Mariner did absolutely decide she wanted nothing to do with the child, as a hypothetical, the baby could survive in an artificial womb.

But extraction was out of the question right now, to counteract the nutrition issues we need to get Mariner as healthy and strong as possible and she would pass on the needed nutrients to her baby naturally.

Only once both mother and child are at peak health (a couple of weeks) then it comes to Mariner to decide on how she wants to proceed.

And after the counselor there would be the debriefing with the captain, Freeman has been nearly killing herself via stress over getting Boimler and Mariner back, so I’m glad Ransom will be the one to be in that meeting room and not I when it all comes to ahead. 

“Beckett !! You’re safe !!!” the captain’s cry of happiness is audible even as we finish materializing.

Grrr, she’s not supposed to be in my med bay, as as I knew that task-force led by that stressed out admiral which was screening us from Romulan “rogue elements” could still be outmaneuvered ... doesn’t she have a ship to captain ?

“You ... you’re you’re ...” the captain couldn’t find words the moment she understood Mariner’s situation, the ensign herself seems to have lost all color in her face ?

Were we too rash to beam her back ? Is her mind reverting when faced with all this stress and an alien environment?

I begin to direct the nurses and give them my field data to prepare the treatments for Mariner.

“Oh no what did those barbarians do ? They took advantage of you ... “ I could see the captain eyes focusing on Beckett and Brad’s hands which were interlocked “ ... heHe Boimler !!! Ransom mentioned you and Beckett were ‘living together’ ... explain ... NOW !!!”

“Captain ! Sir ... Er ma’am ... The child Mariner is carrying is indeed mine, I take full responsibility ... “ the ensign was trying to be brave as he responded, instinctively he fell into a military stance and his voice had cracked but only a little.

“Responsibility ... RESPONSIBILITY ? You just fucking graduated command kindergarden a year ago what do you think you know of responsibility ? Of sacrifices ... of real life ? You’re a CHILD Boimler !”

She paused for the slightest moment because she physically needed more air and energy to continue her screaming. 

“A child that has gotten ANOTHER CHILD pregnant !!! You two idiots ... your lives will never be the same ... “

Thank the maker, the nurses finished getting Mariner’s bio bed ready and I forcefully extract Mariner from the scene and get her on it to begin the treatment.

Freeman might be absolutely livid but she had enough of her senses intact to move aside and let me and Mariner go as needed. 

The captain once she saw Mariner placed on the bed then turned to Boimler and began her tirade anew.

To get any sort of work done I erected one of the med bay’s partition shield around me and Beckett.

This was to protect us from the noises and sights on the outside allowing both the doctor to concentrate and the patient to not be involved in the chaos and shouting that was very much still going on with the captain and Boimler. 

As the minutes past I couldn’t help but let a small smile creep onto my face, Mariner’s health was just as good as my field scans had shown.

No big problems, nothing that proper nutrition, medicine and rest here on the ship couldn’t fix.

Mariner herself was behaving flawlessly, I could tell she was doing some sort of elementary meditation focusing her breadth and etc which was both good for her body and must be helping keeping her from panicking.

“Will he be ok ?” she finally asked.

“Yes your baby boy is looking pretty good, there’s still a lot we need to do but you don’t need to worry I will be releasing you from here today and we’ll schedule appointments where I’ll give you more information we’ll discuss your health how this pregnancy can proceed etc ...”

“Oh good.” she smiled and she seemed so young, intellectually speaking I knew she was young but with her infamy on the ship alongside her impressive feats in the line of duty it was easy to forget she was at the start of her road in life.

“I uh I also meant will Boimler be ok ? I can still hear a bit of the shouting through the sonic shielding.”

Damn my own benevolent nature, I’m too kind for my own good.

I peeked outside of the shielding, Freeman was still shouting at full force towards a cowering but not yet crying Boimler.

“I took you on MY ship ! I taught you ! I gave you so many opportunities !!! ... Ha ha I treated you LIKE A SON ... “ the captain’s laughter was definitely too close to insane for my liking.

“And THIS is how you repay me ???” and now she’s gone into guilt mode.

I entered back to Mariner, who didn’t need me to say anything I guess my expression was enough.

“Could you please get Brad in here ? Please ! He doesn’t deserve what he’s getting or at least I should be beside him facing the music.” 

I peek out once again.

“Boimler !!! Come in here ! I ... need to ask you about any health issues in your family !” Damn me for being a soft-hearted old woman, easily swayed by a young couple’s problems.

He enters the makeshift ward and rushes to Mariner’s side.

“Uhh let’s see there’s lot of stuff we Boimlers traditionally have weak stomachs and ... “

“I can pull up the data from your file you idiot, Mariner wanted to spare you the captain’s onslaught.” I admitted.

Mariner gave me a dirty look.

What ? Was I supposed to read your mind that you didn’t want him to know ?

“I uhh just wanted to keep you alive so I could kill you myself later ... “ Mariner said.

Boimler smiled to this and took her hand in his again.

“I know, I know, don’t worry you will slice me to pieces with your rusty bat’leth I promise not to give the honor of killing me to anyone else.”

“She’s still going full force ?” Beckett asked referring to the captain.

“Freeman is using a combination of outrage and guild trips ... it’s brutally effective.” the purple haired ensign reported honestly.

“Promise me I won’t end up like her ... I mean our son will bring someone home and I don’t want them to see a half-crazed shouting bitch.” Mariner said while keeping her eyes fixed on Boimler.

“Don’t worry you’re not that bad ... and who knows maybe I will ... “ Brad was trying to comfort her but he didn’t seem to get it.

“Mariner ? Are you filling dizzy ? You remember Freeman is your captain, she is not your mother ... “ if her real memories aren’t back correctly this could be disastrous “ Boimler ? Tell me about your life outside of Star Fleet ... “

“What is happening here ? If he is allowed to be in here then I should be allowed too ... as captain if there is no medical reason to keep Beckett separate I demand to be here.” Freeman I guess she used some command override.

The nerve of this woman !

As CMO it was time to put my foot down, she is behaving irrationally.

“We should tell them.” Beckett said plainly.

“I thought our understanding ... “ the captain and the most rebellious ensign exchange some looks and then the captain’s tone changed “ yes this is bigger, plus it’s been killing me acting as a captain only.”

What the hell was she talking about ? Boimler seemed equally puzzled.

“Beckett is my daughter, it’s a secret both of us wanted to keep but now obviously the situation demands honesty in this room.”

The Hell ?

Freeman pulls a picture from her uniform’s inner pocket, unwraps it and gives it to Boimler.

“WhatHow ... at least now things make more sense.” he says.

I take the picture, it has a younger Mariner in her graduation day uniform at the academy, flanked by a smiling captain Freeman and a proud vice admiral who looks the right age to be her father.

Who carries around physical photos in this day and age ?

A mother who doesn’t know if her daughter is dead or alive ...

Boimler and Mariner are looking at each other, another revelation for this day, they’re doing the classical couple pseudo-telepathy.

Freeman is still tense.

I need to take the lead here, as the one adult with a clear head.

“Captain I understand why you and Mariner both wanted to keep your familial ties private, mine and Boimler’s lips on this subject will be sealed.”

She is visibly relieved.

CHA-CHING prime blackmail material right here, me and Shax will get that special dispensation for a romantic relationship between bridge staff no problems now.

Now that the secret is out, Mariner makes it clear she’d like for her mother to stay here as well as I do the various analyses.

I get to work whistling a tune thinking about the love connection I’ll be soon making with Shax.

Carol now instead of yelling at Boimler begins asking him about his family, and asking about their life on the planet.

Boimler swears that his parents can help with the child.

Mariner gets some shots in at her mom calling her grandma, it seems to me that all things considered Mariner wants to carry this child to term but beyond that she is still trying to decide about everything else.

Boimler keeps reaching out to her and being supportive, he’s as in the dark about specifics as her but he honestly wants to be there for his son, and I’m willing to bet all my gold plated latinum he wants Mariner as well.

Freeman keeps butting in to remind them they have no idea or no plan, but at least she is doing it to offer her experience and to guarantee her grandson has the best possible life.

All three of them are in a debate about on-ship kindergardens versus planet side ones when I shove PADD’s into all of their faces to get them so shut up.

“Here !!! My favorite part of this ... the baby’s first picture!” I announce the child’s ultrasounds.


	24. Mirror Match Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary: Boimler and Rutherford don't like what they see when they look in the mirror, neither do the rest of the crew of the Cerritos especially Mariner and Tendi.
> 
> Specials: Trigger warning for mentions of sexual slavery and abusive relationships, nothing happens "on-screen" but discussions of them factors into the threat. This arc also has a Part 0 which is an in-character introduction to the Mirror characters and the universe they come from (we don't have canon info on the MU for the period post DS9 and pre-DISCO season 3 so I had to invent a lot of it reading the Part 0 is very much encouraged)
> 
> Next full story will probably be a chapter from the "House of Boimler" arc but I'm not sure so no trailer now I will edit one in at a later date.

“Hey Boims, now’s your shot Freeman seems relaxed time to kiss her but all the way to that special mentor-ship you’re obsessed with.”

Boimler wanted to be angry, the inter-console messaging system was supposed to be used for official business only, it had been designed to allow bridge officers to communicate quickly and discretely even when say the captain had the enemy on the video screen.

Yet here Beckett was using it again to send him personal messages, as if the both of them were not on the bridge of a warship manning their stations but students passing notes in class.

Still he found he couldn’t really get annoyed at her, and he turned for the slighest second and smiled as a thank you.

It was a very slow shift, a patrol through known space it wasn’t as if Mariner was texting him during a combat situation.

And for some reason she had an almost supernatural understanding of their captain’s moods and hidden thoughts, she had to God only knew how Beckett managed to remain on the ship with all the stunts she pulled regularly.

But most importantly she was choosing to use her unique knowledge to help him Bradward Boimler advance in his objectives, for some reason that gave him confidence in himself for the following conversation like he never knew he could feel.

“Ahem Captain, have you had the opportunity to look over my application for your Leadership Mentoring Program, I’d love to get your feedback.”

“The request looked good ensign ....” Brad couldn’t help but smile she was sounding very relaxed and thus very amiable

“ ... but you need to understand I have tens of applications for that program and there is only one slot during this run. Some of the others have served far longer than yourself or have proven their mettle on dangerous away mission. What proves YOUR potential for leadership ?”

“Well well ugh I ... “ he tried not to choke he had written an entire host of reasons why he could be a good leader but somehow now with all eyes on him, his mouth wasn’t connecting to his brain.

Then his console flared to life.

“Spacial anomaly dead ahead !!!” Boimler announced to the now very alert bridge.

“Full stop ! Raise shields !” Ransom commanded.

“Go to yellow alert.” Freeman took it a step further.

“Full stop. Sensors say the anomaly’s dissipated but I’m now reading a ship ... it seems to be scanning us actively.” Mariner reported with her tone that made you forget she was only a trouble making ensign.

“I need more info.” the captain ordered.

“I’m analyzing the ship, it’s no configuration that we know off but it’s clearly based on the Defiant design ... it just seems to be enlarged, it has as many decks as a Galaxy class with a proportional increase in weapons, warp core capability, shields ... several of the weapons seem to be varieties on banned weapon designs ... sensor scans suggest just two human life signs for crew ?”

“Confirmed on both count Boims ..“ Mariner picked up, the familiarity raised some eyebrows in both XO and Captain but they knew better than to waste time on an etiquette lecture in such a situation.

“ ... the crew seems to be comprised of only two humans, running an entire ship of that size ... they must be using such automation that no other civilization we are in contact with has gone that far. Likewise their weapons not even the Dominion powers their weapons with radiation this dangerous.”

“I think I know why, my readings indicate residue consistent with inter-dimensional travel all over their ship.” Brad announced.

“Oh no, not another case of some assholes sliding into this dimension and causing all sorts of sliders bullshit.” Ransom couldn’t help but bury his face in his palms for a second upon hearing the news.

“More specifically these guys are from THE Mirror Universe, the energy patterns match and their transponder finally made a connection to ours, they identify as the I.S.S Cortez.” Beckett informed the bridge as her hands blurred across her console controlling subsystems and collecting data.

“They’re hailing us, but they have weapons and shields up.” she added.

“Hmph so it’s finally come to this ... “ Freeman said oddly calm “ put the entire ship on red alert and patch them through but only after you’ve initiated protocol Mirror Match.”

The Mirror Match protocol was a new Star Fleet tactic to be used when interacting with MU ships and people.

“Increasing lights.” Mariner responded, the one biological difference we were aware of was that Terrans had a much lower light tolerance, what was uncomfortably bright to us was painful to them. Both Terrans that would try to infiltrate us and those that might potentially already be here hopefully would be affected.

“Streaming all audio from bridge through our ship’s comm system.” Normally the ship’s bridge was private to give it’s crew more comfort in leading without being judged for their words but with the potential for near perfect infiltrators from the MU it was judged that ALL of the crew be aware of what was happening.

Thus preventing situations like a captain Freeman appearing and giving orders contradictory to what she had been saying moments ago on the bridge to some ensign at the warp core.

With these implemented the view screen finally got a signal as we had accepted their hail.

Everyone on the bridge had been holding their breadths, the ship confronting them was not some hypothetical ISS.Cerittos but still everyone was expecting to be greeted by a Mirror! Captain Freeman and her crew.

What was on view screen was not the traditional command bridge, instead the signal seemed to be sent from the warp core, the core of the ISS.Cortez was glowing menacingly pumping power to every weapon on the opposing ship, and in front of it there was one command throne sitting alone.

And the man who sat on that throne was indeed the mirror image of Ensign Boimler.

Subtly all heads on the Cerittos bridge turned to the Prime Boimler as if to verify what their eyes were telling them.

It was the same person, well at least as far as they were both clearly counterparts of each other.

Mirror Boimler has shorter hair, it seemed to be a Caesar cut and while not sporting the full goatee Mirror Spock had made iconic in the Prime Universe he did have a pure goatee smaller and without the mustache and connecting handlebars.

Though he did not want to advertise this, Boimler knew because he had tried growing various beard styles, a full beard came out patchy due to his genetics and while he could do a goatee and mustache combo he didn’t like the feel of the mustache.

Mirror Boimler was also wearing an uniform they had not seen before, last time the Prime Star Fleet had any interaction with the MU the Terran Rebelion was still a guerrilla army, there was no uniform.

Looking at the ensemble you could see roots of that, the cut was somewhere half way between civilian and military, it was light and work-like, military boots pants and a jacket out of what seemed to be treated leather over a division colored under-shirt.

And yet there were the signs of standardization and a certain Imperial Terran decorum, these weren’t Brad’s street clothes.

Which was made very much obvious by the military frills and trimmings in what seemed to be a gold alloy that were added. They were clearly there to mark a certain rank to make people stand up and take notice to what this man would say.

“Beckett ... “ was the first word out of his mouth, the voice unnerved Mariner in that it was exactly her Brad’s, it was to be expected of course but to her it still felt wrong as if she should be able to spot some inherent difference.

“ ... also Brad uh I guess ... and captain ? Freeman ?” the captain of the mirror ship moved on to acknowledge the others.

“In accordance with Federation law I am obliged to inform you this conversation is being recorded primarily for training and quality control purposes, remaining in this call represents your consent on the information being used for these purposes.” Freeman said in lieu of a greeting.

“Ok ? I mean I guess ok, whatever floats your boat ... Sorry I thought I was prepared but it’s so strange to see you other Brad.”

“Likewise ?” Bradward replied trying to keep his tone polite.

“Ok Brad I have to admit, all those times I suggested you try growing a beard because it’s cool ... seeing it now I don’t really think it suits you.” Mariner said matter-of-factly as if they were all hanging out at the mall instead of in a stand off.

Boimler threw her a death glare all the while his cheeks reddened, it wasn’t what she said was bad it’s just that they were on the job now. And due to the protocol literally everyone was hearing it and they were certainly forming opinions about the closeness between them if they were having those sort of conversations.

Brad knew for a fact that the opinion among the crew was that Mariner maverick as she was, was a damn fine officer with more experience than should be possible for her age. Him being her unofficial apprentice was something a lot of fellow officers felt he hadn’t earn. There was rumors that he was paying her for the privilege by going down on her 3 times a day in various supply closets around the ship.

Mariner casually discussing his appearance for everyone on the ship to hear did not help.

“And you’re an ensign ... hmm we have this sort of view that your universe is the ‘easy mode universe’ but I guess it’s not the case.”

“And what is your rank ?” Freeman profited to jump in and get some info on the man.

“Admiral ... and yes the ranks match for example I was captain Boimler before I was Admiral Boimler.”

“See ? We’re basically the same man ... he is proof I have the potential for being a captain ... “ Boimler said enthusiastically not one to let a opportunity sleep away.

“Oh for fu ... now is not the time ... Admiral Boimler you are in my universe now, so explain yourself what is your purpose here ?”

“Beckett.” was the answer.

“Yep ?” was Mariner’s unflappable reply.

“Beckett Mariner ... “

“Ahoy Mirror Boims I’m right here in front of the bridge ? What’s up ? What do you want ?”

“No ... I mean wait I’ll spell it out since you guys seems to be a little slow ... “

“Please do.” Freeman’s words were neutral but she was throwing a glare at her counterpart captain.

“Ahem I BRADWARD BOIMLER WANT YOU BECKETT MARINER, I’VE COME ALL THIS WAY FOR YOU ... TO MAKE YOU MY QUEEN ... BECAUSE I’M ATTRACTED TO YOU BECKETT MARINER ... IM NOT TALKING ANYTHING PLATONIC ... I WANT YOU SEXUALLY ... THAT’S WHY I WENT THOUROUGH ALL OF THIS TROUBLE ... I’M GOING TO TAKE YOU TO MY BEDROOM AND WE’RE NOT GOING TO BE COMING OUT FOR A LONG LONG TIME ...”

“ ... and what I mean by that in case I’m not explicit enough I have some movies I can show you about what I intend to do to her ... I’ll take your silence as a sign I’ve made my point clear enough.”

Now everyone was blatantly staring at Prime Boimler.

Who was feeling the eyes of literally every crew member on the ship on him, but still even as his pulse raced and the vessels in his brain seemed ready to burst he could feel Mariner most of all.

She was sitting besides him but at the console on the other side of the deck, she was now limp as if someone had drained all the energy out of her, her mouth was ajar still trying to process what she’d heard, her face devoid of color as the blood flow had seemed to halt.

She was just as shocked as him.

Well actually more, Brad was aware of his own attraction to her it was a battle he fought daily to keep it under control, and yet with time little by little egged on by every little kind gesture she did or fun day they had together the attraction grew.

So what his counterpart had said was not a shock per say, it was horrifying to see himself eaten alive by this one emotion this one lust, to be driven by this need a need that the mirror Mariner must have already denied him if he had made the trek here he supposed.

And just how casually he had revealed his great shameful inner battle while at the same time making it clear what his fate would be, unable to not love Mariner and unable to win her love.

What a petty and self indulgent quest it seemed to Prime Boimler that his counterpart was on and such an ugly and thoughtless way he had dumped all of his burden on Mariner.

It seemed perfectly clear that in no universe in existence a Beckett Mariner could ever love a Bradward Boimler back.

This reality accepted he could now understand he had a duty to say something to not let his counterpart’s pathetic words poison the room any longer.

“I AM NOTHING LIKE YOU !!!” Prime Boimler shouted.

This seemed to break the spell and everyone was aware of their surroundings again.

“And let me just get this straight “ Mariner spoke her voice clear as crystal “ if I don’t give in to your request ?”

“It wasn’t a request.” Mirror Boimler corrected her in a low tone.

“Admiral Boimler ... “ Freeman was now standing up “ I understand you now but ... consider your request for Beckett’s hand formally DENIED, get the BEEP out of my universe before I blow you out of the sky.”

“As far as I can tell CAPTAIN Freeman the Cerritos is a rust bucket barely holding together ... while I assure you the Cortez is the pride of the Imperial Fleet, the flag ship in fact. She’s got more than enough power so that I feel generous enough to give you this concession from one captain to another ... you have 1 hour to rethink your foolishness and surrender Beckett. Admiral Boimler out.”

* * *

Tendi has been literally pacing in front of her bunk for 15 minutes before Rutherford from his bed above demanded that she stop and tell him what’s wrong.

They were both off-shift and there weren’t many ensigns around in their dorm corridor so Tendi felt safe to jump unto Rutherford’s bunk so they could both sit cross legged in front of each other, leaning in so close that you could think them lovers sharing private words.

“You sure you want to know ?” the Orion needed confirmation before dumping all of this on her friend.

“Pfft just try and stop me from helping you.” Sam responded it did seem like his hunch was correct and she was having some problem, and needed at least someone to confide in.

“I got a PADD today from the Academy apparently they noticed my space walking credits weren’t exactly OK and sent some special material ... ugh honestly just thinking about it ... I haven’t opened it yet.”

“Ohh uhmm I better not intervene last time ... with Badgey I made a right proper disaster with my attempt.”

“SAM!! Don’tSayThat!” Tendi was now somehow even closer “You were doing your best I don’t fault you for that ...”

“Listen I’ll tell you more but please I need your word, don’t ever repeat this to anyone including Mariner and Boimler.”

Rutherford nodded.

“I didn’t tell you the whole story about my spacewalking course ... in the summer before I had to take the course I was at a house party off-campus there I met this young lt. jr. and we started going out.”

“I guess the first sign that he was trouble was that he didn’t make it clear from the start he was going to be a TA on my space walking course ... please don’t be judgey ... “

Sam tried to keep a neutral even supportive expression, honestly his heart had sunk when he heard the relationship part, he knew it wasn’t healthy to feel these things, these pangs of jealousy.

Tendi was his friend and nothing else from her perspective, his fumbling attempts at getting her to see him as more had all failed so the jealousy, it was classically unhealthy and possessive.

“So eventually we had a bad breakup, a REALLY BAD breakup they day came where I had to have my final spacewalking exam, I had been coasting along more interested in what seemed like a real maybe-for-the-rest-of-our-lives thing than in the subject matter.”

“Then when it went to hell I was again so focused on that I didn’t study properly and nothing stuck about the theory or the practice of spacewalking ... I didn’t go to the exam fully expecting to be failed but like you know somehow I passed, I think maybe the professor knew what was happening and he felt sorry for me or something.”

“Now having to open this PADD again and just ... it will bring back all sort of memories ... “

“You’re not the same person you were back then ... and I swear on my honor as an engineer you’re the best bio-tech I’ve ever known soForgetAbout that class ... you deserve to be here and you can pass whatever remedial course they sent.”

“Thank you Rutherford! You’re the best friend a girl could ask for !!!” she said suddenly hugging him.

Her choice of words, created a contrast with her touch, her perfume, how he felt having her arms around him that the cyborg was literally in hell.

When he got back to the real world Tendi somehow had moved on to explaining exactly how her relationship had ended.

Rutherford would have preferred to beat his head on the metal wall until he was unconscious rather than hear more to trigger his pain but what were you gonna do ?

“I understand you don’t have this perspective ... I mean I can’t have your perspective on life as well ... but as a woman, an ‘alien’ among a Star Fleet which is mostly human and an Orion I know for a fact there’s certain stereotypes and fantasies men have if we’re dating.”

“Like a little role-play in the bedroom never hurt anybody and I try not to run from the truth that the reputation about piracy about us seducing men is based on real members of my species but uhhh boy ... the T.A. I mentioned once he felt comfortable I guess really got demanding ... dance for me ... what do you mean you’re not in the mood ... wear the slave girl outfit ... every time we do it ... is it too much to ask for you to wear it while cleaning up ... you’re lucky you’re with me ... do you know other Orion girls who’d like a boyfriend ?”

“I’m so sorry, that will mess anyone up ... Remember you’re far from him don’t give him power over you now.”

“I think I got out in time, thank you ... but please I can see it on your face ... the anger ... please don’t do anything stupid for my sake.”

“I just ... Tendi you ... you’re just someone that’s too ... when I think about someone who made those demands of you like wasn’t a normal loving relationship with you ENOUGH ? He already had that and other guys would kill for that.”

“Sam I know ... don’t worry I’m not judging all human guys by that one dirt-bag I’m an Orion woman I come from this culture ... you for example are a Human male you come from your culture ... but I’ve seen it again and again cross-culture relationships do work.”

“Yeah I guess you need to respect the other person and see how it goes from there.” the engineer was now more calm as Tendi herself was more calm.

He guessed she hadn’t revealed this story to lots of people.

In fact if asked Tendi would admit Sam was the first one she had ever confided this to.

“RED ALERT ! MAN YOUR STATIONS ! PROTOCOL MIRROR MATCH IS IN EFFECT !”

Neither Tendi or Rutherford could say from memory alone what that meant, Star Fleet had several more unique protocols which were rarely used.

The stream of audio and a quick search through a PADD had enlightened them though, as they did not have stations to man during this shift they stood together on Rutherford ‘s bunk and followed the action.

“Ahem I BRADWARD BOIMLER WANT YOU BECKETT MARINER, I’VE COME ALL THIS WAY FOR YOU ... TO MAKE YOU MY QUEEN ... BECAUSE I’M ATTRACTED TO YOU BECKETT MARINER ... IM NOT TALKING ANYTHING PLATONIC ... I WANT YOU SEXUALLY ... THAT’S WHY I WENT THOUROUGH ALL OF THIS TROUBLE ... I’M GOING TO TAKE YOU TO MY BEDROOM AND WE’RE NOT GOING TO BE COMING OUT FOR A LONG LONG TIME ...”

“Wow ... just wow “ Tendi was the first to react “ I knew there was something there but just to have it revealed like this.”

“Not only to us to the whole ship ... and Mariner is right there alongside Brad.” Sam continued her line of thought.

“I never could tell what her intentions to him where, but now to have it be said out loud Mariner must be under some pressure about what she’ll say.”

“And poor Boimler, even if he weren’t my friend to have your emotions and your desires just laid bare in front of everyone especially the woman you’re interested in.”

“You know honestly my problems don’t seem so big and urgent right now, am I horrible person for feeling this way ?”

“No way, we got to take what we get ...” Rutherford lightly touched her knee in support “ don’t even feel bad for getting away.”

“... you have 1 hour to rethink your foolishness and surrender Beckett. Admiral Boimler out.”

“Aww Rutherford “ Tendi practically cooed “ you’re too good for me.”

The stream from the deck came back in the speakers, another voice announcing:

“Greetings this is High Lord of Terra Samathain Rutherford, our ship’s sensors have picked up that you have the Orion woman named D’vana Tendi on board, you are also to deliver her for my personal pleasure. Inquisitor Rutherford out !”

The two ensigns could only look at each other shocked beyond words.

“Do not forget to also provide her dancing girl outfit and slave chains if they are present. Please and thank you, Rutherford out!”

This was just the day that kept on giving.

* * *

The Cerittos conference room was full, the senior staff were trying to figure out how to win when they were outgunned and outmatched, the 4 ensigns were just trying to follow along.

Normally Mariner would have had no problem keeping her head in the game, but today had been just too much.

Since Boimler had revealed he had an ethical backbone by not snitching on her to her mother, what had been an intriguing mix of traits which she did not know why they worked so well on her had become a dangerously attractive package.

For her part she had moved ever cautiously throwing hints, increasingly less subtle hints but Boimler either didn’t catch them or he wanted a sort of relationship they both knew they couldn’t have ... so he didn’t bother to play her game.

And then Mirror Boims had just waltzed in and blew the whole thing open, he wanted her badly and while it wasn’t a law like gravity that must also mean her Boimler also wanted her.

“Boimler, Rutherford don’t you have anything to add ?” Ransom asked.

“No.”

“No sir, why would we ?”

“Look I’m going to be frank with you ensigns we’re outmatched combat wise, the only way to win this is if Mirror Boimler and Mirror Rutherford make mistakes and the most likely source of said mistakes are your unbridled obsessive LUSTS over Mariner respective Tendi. So you need to give us all the dirty details that can give us an edge”

“Sir permission to spe ... oh beep it ... look it’s not their fault cut them some slack, if someone will be giving Boims shit for this it will be me, not the senior staff !”

“Yeah, don’t worry Sam I don’t think less of you!” Tendi said but her smile was a bit unsure.

“Ok everyone settle down ... We’re facing a serious threat “ Captain Freeman intervened “ they’re not just going after us, they’re going after two young women in the crew, two young women I swore are under my protection. Boimler’s sick plans don’t matter because he won’t get to enact them.”

She paused as if unsure and continued.

“I need to say something ... Mariner’s mother is ... “ Beckett’s eyes went wide “ ... a woman I know very well ... she is a hardworking dedicated woman, who receives too little respect from both her bosses and her crew of ingrates ...SO BELIEVE ME we are not letting her daughter get dragged off by some horny milksop.”

Finally a plan was put together, through precise unorthodox maneuvers they would last long enough for the enemy’s shields to be lowered then they would swarm the ship using their numeric advantage in raiding parties.

* * *

“Come to your senses ?” Mirror Boimler asked in place of a greeting.

“Beep Off!” Freeman replied.

“You know you’re risking hundreds of lives for just two.”

“You should worry about that, like you just said compared to you and Rutherford I have an army at my disposal.” Freeman made one last attempt to threaten him.

“I have The Boimler Effect ... “

“We also have a Boimler.” the captain moved forward and placed her hand with pride on the ensign’s shoulder.

...

“HOW THE BEEP DID WE LOSE ?” Freeman was yelling her ship with her shields down, no casualties but weapons and defensive systems offline.

“Shee Beep-ing Hubris!” came the admiral’s reply.

“Oh Beep me your beeping language filter is working on my translator as well ? Let’s just go I’m beeping done with this universe.”

Mariner and Tendi were suddenly transported away.

“Also Vae Victis I’m not going to let you foil my plans, I’m taking every officer from your crew that has the slightest skill for a chance to stop me.”

And thus only Boimler and Rutherford were taken away.


End file.
